Ministers will publish review by Philip Rycroft, which will make recommendations relevant to all the political parties, today
Good morning. In December the government announced that Philip Rycroft, a former permanent secretary at the Brexit department, will lead a review into foreign financial interference into UK politics. The review is being published today, and it will include recommendations that we’re told the government will implement as a priority.
The review will make recommendations relevant to all the political parties, but no one in government is trying very hard to pretend that one party in particular isn’t the main focus. Rycroft was hired for the job soon after Nathan Gill, the former Reform UK leader in Wales, was sentenced to 10 and a half years in jail for taking bribes to spout pro-Russian propaganda. Nigel Farage, the Reform UK leader, dismissed Gill as a one-off bad apple, but other Brexit party MEPs gave pro-Russian speeches similar to Gill’s. Reform UK is the Brexit party under a new name.
And Reform UK is the only political party actively encouraging donations in cryptocurrency – which is widely seen as the currency of choice for people keen to avoid the attention of the regulatory authorities. Parliament’s joint committee on the national security strategy has been calling for a ban on crypto donations to political parties and, according to a story by Max Kendix in the Times, Rycroft is going to say he agrees. Kendix says: “Keir Starmer is expected to ban cryptocurrency donations in a blow to Nigel Farage as an independent review warns that they risk letting foreign powers intervene in British democracy.”
