Reform UK pulls crypto bill from website amid Christopher Harborne ‘gift’ scandal

Reform UK has removed a proposed crypto bill from its website amid ongoing controversy around billionaire Tether investor Christopher Harborne’s secret £5 million “gift” to the party’s leader, Nigel Farage.

The Cryptoassets and Digital Finance Bill was announced last year during the Bitcoin 2025 conference in Las Vegas. However, The Nerve reports that the bill was scrubbed from the website on May 30 this year. 

The Nerve also notes that the bill’s PDF can still be found online but is no longer present on Reform UK’s own website.  

A month before the bill’s removal, The Guardian revealed that Reform leader Farage was given £5 million by billionaire Christopher Harborne before he ran for election in June 2024. 

Read more: Nigel Farage: £5M Christopher Harborne gift was ‘reward’ for Brexit

The gift from Harborne, who holds a 12% stake in billion-dollar stablecoin firm Tether, was kept a secret and not declared on the parliamentary register of interests. 

Weeks after this report, the UK’s Parliamentary Standards Commissioner launched a probe to determine whether or not the gift breached any rules. Farage maintains it never had to be declared, and how he spends it isn’t “the public’s business.”

The now-deleted bill made numerous promises in a seeming attempt to portray Reform UK favorably in the eyes of crypto traders. 

For example, it promised to reduce the crypto capital gains tax to 10%, introduce a UK BTC reserve, and bar banks from restricting services based on crypto transactions. 

The Nerve spoke to various finance and law experts who reviewed the bill and determined that it would benefit the super-rich while failing to do little to protect users from fraud and scams. 

Read more: Nigel Farage said shady alleged crypto ATM owner is ‘like a son to me’

Professor of finance at Sussex University, Carol Alexander, told The Nerve that the bill appears like it was “made up by a schoolkid.” 

Meanwhile, financial economist Frances Coppola said the bill features policies “which, from an economic standpoint — even from a welfare standpoint — really make little sense.”

Dr Philipp Paech, an associate professor of law at the London School of Economics, said, “It is a nonsensical proposal in terms of public policy and would directly benefit a specific clientele.” 

The Nerve also notes that across the entire bill, stablecoins are mentioned once within a list of definitions. This is despite the highly-publicised stablecoin lobbying Farage undertook against the Bank of England last year. 

Many believe that the controversy over the gift has been the reason for Farage drastically cutting back on his media duties. Indeed, The Financial Times reports that he reduced his interactions with the press from 20 conferences between January and April 2026 to just one in May. 

Read more: UK’s Liberal Democrats want inquiry into Nigel Farage’s £2M bitcoin purchase

Now, according to a Reform UK insider interviewed by The i Paper, Farage is scared that he may face a by-election in his constituency if the parliamentary probe concludes that he broke the rules. 

One potential punishment is a 10-day suspension from Parliament. If this happens, The i Paper reports that a successful recall petition could trigger a by-election if it receives signatures from more than 10% of eligible voters

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