Labour MPs Push to Make UK Crypto Donation Ban Permanent

Labor MPs are preparing to force the UK government to permanently ban political donations in cryptocurrency Guardian has reported.

MPs from Parliament’s all-party anti-corruption group are raising support for four amendments to the Representation of the People Bill, the newspaper said. The government’s current moratorium on crypto donations would be replaced with a permanent ban Guardian The proposal has broad support among Labor MPs amid a deepening row over the finances of Reform UK and its leader Nigel Farage.

Liam Byrne, the Labor chairman of the business committee behind the crypto ban amendment, said politicians in the UK appeared willing to go to “extraordinary lengths” to avoid scrutiny of their finances, and urged colleagues to back the changes as a safeguard for British democracy. His amendment had at least twenty signatures on Thursday afternoon, according to the newspaper.

Four amendments

The crypto ban is one of the many measures that the rebels want. Former minister Anneliese Dodds has tabled an amendment that will cut campaign spending limits by almost a third, from £34 million to £24.4 million, arguing that Britain is facing “an arms race in political campaign financing.”

Yuan Yang, an ally of the new prime minister, wants to put limits on the amount of money a party can hold when it is first formed, after it emerged that Rupert Lowe’s Restore Britain was launched with £2.5 million in the bank without citing its source. A fourth, from Mark Sewards, would introduce checks on whether donations risk being part of a foreign attempt to undermine British democracy.

Crypto in the crosshairs

Britain laid one moratorium on crypto-political donations in March, after the government ordered it Rycroft Review warned that the anonymity of digital asset transfers could be used to channel foreign money into British politics.

Philip Rycroft, the former senior civil servant who wrote the review, called for a temporary ‘interlude’ rather than a permanent ban, to give regulations time to catch up. The rebel amendment would close that door for good.

Campaigners have done that called for a complete ban for months arguing that the election commission does not have the resources to track cryptocurrencies and pointing to outright bans already in place in Ireland And Brazil. Reform UK became the first major British party accept crypto donations in June 2025.

The Farage funding row

The urge to harden the law comes when pressure rises about the money behind Reform UK. The party has received donations totaling millions of pounds from expat crypto billionaires Christopher Harborne and Ben Delo – none of whom were created in cryptocurrency form.

Farage is separately facing one research by the Parliamentary Standards Commissioner over his acceptance of a £5 million gift from Harborne, made shortly before he announced his decision to stand as an MP in June 2024. The gift, which Farage claims was under the terms no obligation to declare and be entitled to it spend as he pleasescaused a suspicious activity report of bankers who were not satisfied were able to trace the ultimate origin of the funds Guardian reported.

Farage has denied all allegations and led to a by-election in his seat in Clacton to argue that the voters are on his side, a contest none of Reform’s main rivals will fight. Ministers have separately pledged to tighten the election law when it returns to the House of Commons on July 14 government amendments including a £100,000 limit on donations from expats for their first year back in Britain.

Not every proposal has equal support: a £100,000 limit on all individual donations, proposed by Labour’s Stella Creasy, would have less support than the Byrne, Dodds, Yang and Sewards amendments. A spokesperson for the Housing Ministry said the government would “continue to look at ways to strengthen the bill” as it moves through parliament.