Nigel Farage faces scrutiny over £5 million gift from Tether stakeholder
A £5 million personal gift from Tether stakeholder Christopher Harborne has pulled Nigel Farage into a standards inquiry and renewed pressure on Reform UK's crypto money.
An undisclosed £5 million personal gift from Christopher Harborne, a Thailand-based British businessman with a 12% stake in Tether, has triggered a parliamentary standards inquiry into Nigel Farage and calls for wider Electoral Commission action. Farage has said the money was for security costs and was unconditional.
The company says USDT is the world’s largest stablecoin. On May 1, 2026, Tether said first-quarter net profit reached $1.04 billion while excess reserves rose to $8.23 billion. In 2025, the firm faced questions over reserves and did not fully disclose where they were held or in what form.
In January 2025, Tether said it was relocating its headquarters and subsidiaries from the British Virgin Islands after securing a Digital Asset Service Provider licence there, and Paolo Ardoino said the founders were moving to capitalize on El Salvador's push to become a crypto hub.
Bankers filed a suspicious activity report in May 2024 and asked the National Crime Agency to decide whether there were grounds for further investigation, while Labour and Liberal Democrat figures pressed the Electoral Commission to examine Reform UK's crypto-linked donations. Daniel Greenberg, the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards, is also examining whether Farage broke lobbying or declaration rules by engaging on crypto policy after receiving support from Harborne.
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