An independent government review warned that crypto assets could channel foreign money into British politics.
The United Kingdom has imposed an immediate moratorium on all cryptocurrency donations to political parties, Prime Minister Keir Starmer announced on Wednesday.
The move follows the publication of the Rycroft Review, a 50-page independent assessment of foreign financial interference in UK politics led by former senior civil servant Philip Rycroft.
The government will legislate the moratorium through amendments to the Representation of the People Bill currently before Parliament, and the new rules will apply retrospectively to any crypto donations received from Wednesday onward, Communities Secretary Steve Reed confirmed in the House of Commons.
Why Crypto
The Rycroft Review cited a combination of concerns specific to crypto assets as the basis for its recommendation, including the incomplete regulatory framework for crypto — particularly at the international level — the difficulty of tracing ultimate ownership, the proliferation of different cryptoasset vehicles with varying degrees of traceability, and the emergence of AI-assisted technologies that can fragment crypto holdings into amounts small enough to fall below the £500 threshold at which political donations must be declared.
No crypto donations have reached the reporting threshold to date, according to the review, meaning the Electoral Commission has had no visibility into the scale of crypto flowing into party coffers.
The review framed the moratorium as a pause rather than a permanent prohibition. Rycroft wrote that the measure should be understood as an interval for the regulatory environment to catch up with the reality of cryptoassets, not a prelude to an outright ban. The legislation would include a mechanism to lift the moratorium once Parliament and the Electoral Commission are satisfied that adequate regulation is in place.
Rycroft also acknowledged that the ban is not a complete seal. Donors would still be able to convert crypto holdings to fiat and donate the proceeds, at which point traditional anti-money laundering checks would apply.
The UK Parliament’s Joint Committee on the National Security Strategy last month described crypto’s presence in UK politics as an unacceptably high risk to the integrity of the political finance system, and endorsed the review’s findings today.
Reform UK in the Crosshairs
The moratorium lands squarely on Nigel Farage’s Reform UK, the only major British party to actively court crypto donations. Reform became the first mainstream UK party to accept Bitcoin donations last year, and its largest donor — Thailand-based Christopher Harborne, a major Tether investor — has donated £12 million to the party over the past year, including a single £9 million contribution.
The Electoral Commission has said that Reform has not shared any crypto wallet addresses with the regulator, limiting the watchdog’s ability to independently verify the party’s crypto funding sources.
Reform UK MPs walked out of the House of Commons during Starmer’s announcement. The Prime Minister took a direct shot at Farage, telling MPs that there was only one party leader willing to say anything if paid to do so.
Broader Crackdown
The crypto moratorium is one of 17 recommendations in the Rycroft Review, which found that foreign interference in UK politics from Russia, China, and Iran is persistent and growing more acute. The review was triggered by the November 2025 conviction of Nathan Gill, Reform UK’s former leader in Wales, who was sentenced to more than 10 years for accepting Russian bribes.
Alongside the crypto ban, the government immediately adopted a £100,000 annual cap on political donations from British citizens living overseas. Rycroft also recommended limiting corporate donations to a party’s reported taxable profits — a measure aimed at closing a loophole that could allow foreign individuals to funnel money through UK-registered shell companies.
The Rycroft Review also warned of threats beyond direct political financing, noting that foreign-linked social media bots and disinformation campaigns represent a relatively cheap way for hostile states to interfere in democratic processes. Rycroft separately flagged what he called a potential new threat from allies like the United States, citing a willingness of foreign actors and private citizens to interfere in politics abroad in pursuit of their own agenda.
This article was written with the assistance of AI workflows. All our stories are curated, edited and fact-checked by a human.
Source: https://thedefiant.io/news/regulation/uk-bans-crypto-donations-to-political-parties