… on a quiet day, I can hear her breathing

Category: plutocracy

  • Who funds Reform? Farage’s party bags £15m from crypto and finance donors

    Spread the love

    Article by Ethan Shone republished from OpenDemocracy under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International licence.

    Darren Staples/Bloomberg via Getty Images

    Reform has accepted more large donations than any other party in 2026, despite mounting funding scandals, new data shows

    Nigel Farage’s party received large donations totalling almost £15m in the first six months of this year, according to Electoral Commission records, including millions of pounds from a crypto billionaire who was pardoned by Donald Trump last year. 

    Reform’s fundraising operations continue to prove highly effective in spite of its ongoing scandals. The party is amassing a massive financial war chest ahead of the next general election, which many in Westminster believe could take place as soon as next autumn.

    The latest donations data comes as Reform suspends two senior aides pending an investigation, after an undercover sting exposed their alleged role in facilitating secret donations, including from impermissible donors overseas. Rival parties said they have reported Reform to the police, while the Electoral Commission said it is “considering all relevant information” and is “in touch with the Met Police”. Reform has denied any wrongdoing.

    The events have overshadowed the party’s conference in Birmingham this weekend, and are the latest in a series of scandals the party has faced over its funding this year. In July, openDemocracy travelled to Montenegro to investigate the lives and business interests of key Reform allies and donors, including ‘Posh George’ Cottrell and billionaire crypto investor Christopher Harborne, in the glamorous coastal resort of Tivat.

    At the same time, a number of news reports raised serious questions about Cottrell and Farage, after The Sunday Times reported the Clacton MP had failed to disclose in-kind support from the 32-year-old convicted fraudster. The allegations led to calls for an investigation by parliamentary authorities, which were already probing a £5m gift that Farage allegedly failed to declare having received from Harborne.

    Reform’s crypto funding

    The latest data shows Reform continues to bring in significantly more from large donations than the other parties: £5.3m in the second quarter of 2026, compared to £3.6m for Labour and £2.8m for the Conservatives. 

    That brings the party’s total donations this year to almost £15m, meaning it has accepted almost twice as much as Labour (£8m) and more than double the Conservatives (£7m).

    Reform receives the vast majority of its funding from a small number of high-value donors, with Harborne, a crypto investor based in Thailand, by far the party’s most significant donor to date. 

    Now, the party has added another crypto billionaire with offshore links to its ranks of mega donors; Sheffield-born Ben Delo gave the party £4m in April, following two £2m donations in January and March. 

    British crypto entrepreneur Delo has rapidly become one of Reform UK’s largest individual donors, having given the party £8m across the first half of 2026 – £4m in each quarter. If he continues this trend throughout the rest of the year, he could surpass Harborne’s current total.  

    Delo is one of many Reform donors with strong interests in the crypto sector. He was a software engineer at IBM and later built high-frequency trading systems at JPMorgan and GSA Capital in Hong Kong, before co-founding cryptocurrency derivatives exchange BitMEX. In 2020, US federal authorities charged the BitMEX founders with violating the Bank Secrecy Act over inadequate anti-money-laundering controls; Delo pleaded guilty in 2022, paid a $10m penalty and served 30 months’ probation, which ended in December 2024. Trump pardoned him in March 2025.

    Delo’s latest donations come after the government imposed a £100,000 cap on donations from overseas residents in March 2026. At the time, Delo said he would move back to the UK to sidestep the restriction, and he has reportedly signalled plans to keep funding the party from Britain going forward. 

    Big finance and former Tories

    Reform also continues to add new donors with interests in the financial sector. Over the past year, senior figures in the party have engaged with lobbyists in the City of London, seeking both policy ideas and financial support. 

    Lucas Bitencourt, a young finance entrepreneur, gave the party £100,000, while private equity firm Bryden Capital gave £50,000 and a Jersey financial adviser who works with “the world’s first bitcoin investment fund” gave £25,000. 

    A Scottish corporate lawyer specialising in private equity and technology continues to provide funding, giving £100,000 in May. He has now given the party £300,000 in total. 

    An investment firm linked to Chelsea owner Todd Boehly – a significant donor to conservative politics in the US – also gave the party £75,000. 

    Robert Jenrick, Reform’s Treasury spokesman, also received a significant donation after defecting to the party from the Conservatives. Jenrick received £50,000 from a donor with ties to financial services and crypto, Michael Cohen of Capital Group, an investment firm that the Wall Street Journal last year reported was “ploughing billions into crypto”.

    Three former Tory donors continue to make up a significant portion of Reform’s funding base: Bassim Haidar, Johan Christofferson and Roger Nagioff all contributed six-figure sums in recent months and have now given over a million between them since the last election. Excluding Harborne, who gave Boris Johnson £1m in 2022, former Tory donors have given Reform over £3m since the 2024 vote. 

    Article by Ethan Shone republished from OpenDemocracy under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International licence.

    Nigel Farage is scathing at the £250,000 cost to the taxpayer of his unnecessary and ridiculous Clacton-on-Sea election campaign that he caused to avoid scrutiny and acccountability for the £5MILLION 'gift' that he didn't declare.
    Nigel Farage is scathing at the £250,000 cost to the taxpayer of his unnecessary and ridiculous Clacton-on-Sea election campaign that he caused to avoid scrutiny and acccountability for the £5MILLION ‘gift’ that he didn’t declare.
    Nigel Farage urges you to ignore facts and reality and be a climate science denier like him and his Deputy Richard Tice. He says that Reform UK has received £Millions and £Millions from the fossil fuel industry to promote climate denial and destroy the planet.
    Nigel Farage urges you to ignore facts and reality and be a climate science denier like him and his Deputy Richard Tice. He says that Reform UK has received £Millions and £Millions from the fossil fuel industry to promote climate denial and destroy the planet.
    Nigel Farage admits to being a whore willing to do anything for someone with a big fat wallet and asks whether drinking pints and smoking fags is not enough for the stupid plebs.
    Nigel Farage admits to being a whore willing to do anything for someone with a big fat wallet and asks whether drinking pints and smoking fags is not enough for the stupid plebs.

  • Palestine activists appeal ‘unprecedented’ terror sentences

    Spread the love

    https://youtu.be/gv24jq6vkA0

    Palestine Action activists are appealing their unprecedented terrorism convictions. Their sentencing in June 2026 was the first time in British legal history that criminal damage convictions were sentenced as terrorism.

    At a press conference in London, Simon Natas, the lawyer for Ellie Kamio, Charlotte Head, Fatema Zainab and Samuel Corner, told the press that in his 15 years working on similar cases, he would have been completely shocked if any of those were charged with a terrorism connection.

    Also speaking were Emma and Sukaina – the mothers of Ellie and Fatema – as well as Dr James Smith and Dr Shahd Hammouri.

    Keir Starmer objects to criticism of the IDF. He asks how could anyone object to them starving people to death, forced marches like the Nazis did, bombing Gaza's hospitals and universities, mass-murdering journalists, healthworkers and starving people queuing for food, killing and raping prisoners and murdering children. He calls for people to stop obstructing his genocide for Israel. New Labour UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham continues Labour party policy of active support and complicity in Israel's genocide.
    Keir Starmer objects to criticism of the IDF. He asks how could anyone object to them starving people to death, forced marches like the Nazis did, bombing Gaza’s hospitals and universities, mass-murdering journalists, healthworkers and starving people queuing for food, killing and raping prisoners and murdering children. He calls for people to stop obstructing his genocide for Israel. New Labour UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham continues Labour party policy of active support and complicity in Israel’s genocide.
    UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham admits to blatently lying and engaging in deception to become leader of the UK Labour Party and Prime Minister.
    UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham admits to blatently lying and engaging in deception to become leader of the UK Labour Party and Prime Minister.
    Vote Labour for Genocide.
    Vote Labour for Genocide.

  • Analysis: UK solar power hits record high over summer 2026

    Spread the love

    Renewables By: Molly Lempriere, Ho Woo Nam

    Aerial view of a solar farm in England. Credit: Elevate Drones / Alamy Stock Photo

    Solar power generation in the UK reached a new record over the summer of 2026, as temperatures across the nation soared, according to new analysis by Carbon Brief. 

    Collectively over June, July and August, solar farms and rooftops generated 8.8 terawatt-hours (TWh) of electricity in the UK*, as shown in the chart below. 

    Line chart showing that UK solar generation reached an all-time high during record-hot summer 2026

    Speaking to Carbon Brief, Chris Hewett, chief executive of trade association Solar Energy UK welcomed the new record, adding that it was driven by “clear skies and continued growth in deployment”. 

    This surge in generation took place amid the hottest summer on record in the UK, with five heatwaves between May and August.

    Summer 2026 was the sixth sunniest on record, with more than 620 hours of sunshine, according to the Met Office. England and Wales – which experienced the most extreme heat – saw their second-sunniest summers on record. 

    June 2026 was the hottest June in England since records began in 1884, according to Met Office data, while Wales and the UK as a whole experienced their second-warmest June. 

    It was the driest July for England and Wales since records began in 1836, with some parts of London seeing no rain at all in the month, while Wisley in Surrey had no rain for 62 days. 

    In England, temperatures peaked at 38.1C at Kew Gardens in London on 13 August. 

    According to the Met Office, this summer’s record mean temperature was made 130 times more likely by climate change.  

    Amid these hot and sunny months, solar power generation increased 23% from the same period in 2025. This is double the level of solar generation over the summer of 2021, according to Carbon Brief analysis. 

    While solar panels can be affected by periods of extreme heat, the longer hours of daylight and higher levels of irradiation over the summer more than offset any efficiency losses. 

    June, July and August all saw solar set new monthly records for solar generation – July saw the highest solar generation in a calendar month ever, with 3.3TWh meeting 15% of overall electricity demand for the month. 

    As of the end of August, the total UK solar generation in 2026 stood at 17TWh – 13% higher than the same point in 2025. 

    The number of solar farms and rooftop installations has grown substantially in recent years, helping to boost generation. Domestic rooftop solar accounts for around 29% of total capacity.

    In 2025, the UK’s solar capacity reached 21 gigawatts (GW) by the third quarter of the year, according to UK government figures. This is a jump of 3GW, or 18%, year-on-year, as Carbon Brief reported in January. 

    (Capacity is the maximum output possible from an electricity generation, whereas generation is what was produced over a certain time period, such as a day, month or year.)

    According to the University of Sheffield, the installed solar capacity is now nearly 24GW. 

    This includes nearly 172,000 solar installations that have been fitted across the UK since the start of 2026, according to recent government figures. In July alone, more than 19,800 rooftop solar panels were installed – the equivalent of one installation every two minutes. 

    In total, nearly 1.7m households in the UK now have solar panels installed. 

    Over 26 heatwave days this summer – periods of at least three days when temperatures exceed the Met Office’s county-level heatwave temperature threshold – UK households with rooftop solar panels avoided an estimated £86.7m in electricity costs, according to analysis by Utility Bidder.

    Talking about the surge in solar generation this summer, Hewett says: 

    “[It] not only kept bills down for people with solar and batteries in their homes, but helped keep overall power prices much lower than they would have been if Britain had been relying on more gas generation during the day”.

    Despite the record generation, no new half-hourly solar power output record was set in the summer of 2026. This still stands at 15.2 megawatts (MW) on 23 April 2026.

    * This article refers to the UK throughout, but strictly relates to the island of Great Britain, made up of England, Scotland and Wales. Northern Ireland is part of the separate, all-Ireland electricity system.

  • Jackdaw gasfield set to be approved by ministers this month, sources say

    Spread the love

    https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2026/sep/04/jackdaw-gasfield-set-to-be-approved-by-ministers-this-month-sources-say

    Climate activists protesting against the new fields. Consultations on Jackdaw and Rosebank closed last month. Photograph: Murdo MacLeod/The Guardian

    Ministers are poised to approve a controversial new gasfield in the North Sea later this month, according to government sources, and are also likely to approve a major oilfield later this year.

    Miatta Fahnbulleh, the energy secretary, will give her recommendation to approve the Jackdaw field off the coast of Aberdeen as soon as next week, according to people close to the decision, with the formal approval following as soon as a week after.

    She is also likely to approve the Rosebank mega-oilfield in the coming months, though officials are looking for ways to make sure the proceeds from that project go towards clean energy projects, as happens in Norway.

    Both projects have become emblematic of the government’s commitment to the North Sea, with green campaigners calling for them to be abandoned while the US president, Donald Trump, urges the prime minister to open them up.

    A spokesperson for the energy department said: “The North Sea remains a vital national asset, supporting jobs, growth and the UK’s energy security. We are clear that oil and gas will continue to play an important role in our energy system for decades to come, alongside transitioning to clean power to protect jobs and tackle the climate crisis.”

    …

    The original article continues at https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2026/sep/04/jackdaw-gasfield-set-to-be-approved-by-ministers-this-month-sources-say

    Greenpeace activists display a billboard during a protest outside Shell headquarters on July 27, 2023 in London.
    Greenpeace activists display a billboard during a protest outside Shell headquarters on July 27, 2023 in London. (Photo: Handout/Chris J. Ratcliffe for Greenpeace via Getty Images)
    Experienced climbers scale a rock face near the historic Dumbarton castle in Glasgow, releasing a banner that reads “Climate on a Cliff Edge.” One activist, dressed as a globe, symbolically looms near the edge, while another plays the bagpipes on the shores below. | Photo courtesy of Extinction Rebellion and Mark Richards
    Experienced climbers scale a rock face near the historic Dumbarton castle in Glasgow, releasing a banner that reads “Climate on a Cliff Edge.” One activist, dressed as a globe, symbolically looms near the edge, while another plays the bagpipes on the shores below. | Photo courtesy of Extinction Rebellion and Mark Richards
    Nigel Farage urges you to ignore facts and reality and be a climate science denier like him and his Deputy Richard Tice. He says that Reform UK has received £Millions and £Millions from the fossil fuel industry to promote climate denial and destroy the planet.
    Nigel Farage urges you to ignore facts and reality and be a climate science denier like him and his Deputy Richard Tice. He says that Reform UK has received £Millions and £Millions from the fossil fuel industry to promote climate denial and destroy the planet.

    dizzy: Nigel Farage and his Reform 2025 limited company pretending to be a political party are in the news today – their conference is on and there are concerns over dodgy donations yet again. Andy Burnham could take his place in this image … “We ignore the many examples of extreme weather made worse by climate change …”