Shortly before Christmas, on 16 December 2025, the Government announced an urgent independent review into foreign financial interference in UK politics. The review is to be led by former DExEU Permanent Secretary Philip Rycroft. Though newspaper reports described this as an inquiry, the government statement and announcement to the House of Commons outlined an urgent review which will assess ‘the effectiveness of the UK’s political finance laws, as well as the safeguards in place to protect our democracy from illicit money from abroad, including cryptocurrencies’. It will also examine ‘the rules governing the constitution and regulation of political parties and the Electoral Commission’s enforcement powers, as well as explore the role of the current checks and balances in the system’. Philip Rycroft is expected to deliver his report to Secretary of State for Housing and Local Government, Steve Reed, and the Security Minister, Dan Jarvis, by the end of March 2026. The findings from the review will inform the elections and democracy bill which is expected in this Parliament.
One bad apple or a rotten system?
Government concern at foreign financial interference is not new, but the sense of urgency is linked to two recent cases: the conviction and sentencing of former MEP Nathan Gill for accepting bribes to promote pro-Russian narratives, and Christine Lee, the UK-based lawyer accused of working covertly on behalf of the Chinese Communist Party. Although the review is expected to consider these recent cases, it will focus on contemporary events and threats and not draw together various previous allegations of foreign interference.
In particular, the Gill case appears to be the catalyst for the review, which Steve Reed highlighted in his statement to the House about the matter. Whilst there are genuine concerns about financial interference, there is also a domestic political angle to the review with the focus on the Gill case. Gill was a Reform party member, a former UKIP MEP, and also most recently leader of Reform UK in Wales in 2021. Though he left Reform after having failed to win a seat in the 2021 Welsh Senedd elections, he did hold a seat a few years earlier and led UKIP in Wales briefly. Gill received a sentence of 10.5 years and pleaded guilty to 8 charges of accepting Russian bribes.
With Welsh Senedd elections in 2026, keeping the case in the public eye may be on the mind of the Labour Government. Reform leader Nigel Farage has welcomed the review and attempted to distance himself from Gill, calling him ‘one bad apple’. The potential for the review to uncover further ‘bad apples’ may be on the mind of Labour strategists seeking ways to undermine the Reform polling surge. Heightened urgency may also stem from multiple stories around Elon Musk bankrolling Reform or other right-wing parties. Despite this, campaigners have pointed out that muted reforms to corporate donations need to go much further to seriously restrict foreign financial interference.
Defending democracy one taskforce at a time
The review is not in isolation. Mindful of the external threats to election integrity, Labour’s election manifesto committed to ‘protect democracy by strengthening the rules around donations to political parties’. The new government inherited the Defending Democracy Taskforce set up by former Prime Minister Rishi Sunak in 2022 with a remit to ‘protect the democratic integrity of the UK from threats of foreign interference’, reporting to the National Security Council. The Taskforce now chaired by Dan Jarvis has continued to function with a new mandate under Labour. It has been reviewed by the Joint National Committee on the National Security Strategy and in evidence by Jarvis in March 2025, he described the Taskforce’s work as a ‘fulcrum point across Government that brings together different government departments, operational partners, the intelligence services and the Houses of Parliament.’ The remit appeared to have widened to harassment and intimidation of elected officials and candidates. In the evidence session Jarvis acknowledged the context: ‘we should also be very clear that foreign states are working around the world to undermine democracies and to influence elections in their favour’. However, he concluded that ‘during the 2024 election there were no major information operations or cyber incidents, and the incidents that did occur were judged not to have caused a notable impact on the elections.’
At present UK political parties and candidates may only receive donations and loans from permissible sources. These include individuals on the electoral register, UK-registered companies, UK-registered trade unions and unincorporated associations. Rules on permissibility apply for donations above £500 for parties and above £50 for candidates. However, foreign actors can donate via UK-registered companies and there are now newer threats. Donations are becoming harder to detect and trace, and the review will also look at donations via cryptocurrencies. Of the main parties only Reform UK has stated that it would accept cryptocurrency donations. The major risk with these crypto donations, though, is that the source is obfuscated and anonymity allows covert and impossible to trace interference, according to Transparency International UK.
A resilient system?
For years campaigners and reformist politicians have drawn attention to the various weaknesses in the UK’s political system that provide loopholes for foreign interference. The 2016 Brexit referendum exposed an alarming loophole in electoral funding when the DUP exploited the weaknesses of British electoral law to surreptitiously fund campaign efforts outside its Northern Ireland constituency. Funding came from the largest political donation in Northern Irish history, worth £435,000, traced to a secretive Scottish group. The electoral rules which relate to Northern Ireland meant that it was not necessary for the DUP to reveal the source of this funding.
In January 2020 the APPG on Electoral Campaigning Transparency published Defending our Democracy in the Digital Age, an extensive report in the wake of the 2017 and 2019 general elections and with the fallout from the Cambridge Analytica-Facebook data scandal still fresh. The report highlighted the gaps in the electoral system allowing, in the words of the APPG Chair, ‘a tsunami of dirty money and dodgy data to smash through our flimsy defences’. That Chair, Stephen Kinnock, is now a government minister. The Government he is part of is preparing the next Elections Bill and we can expect a tightening up of loopholes, strengthening of the Electoral Commission to police donations, only allowing UK-based companies to donate from income generated in the UK, and perhaps other measures to come from the Rycroft review to be included in the Bill.
The UK is by no means the only country facing up to foreign interference. In the wake of the 2017 presidential election in France, new electoral legislation was passed after foreign hackers targeted then-candidate Emmanuel Macron’s presidential campaign. The Elections Modernization Act (2018) in Canada was enacted after Canada’s national intelligence agency warned the major political parties to beware of foreign election interference, including efforts by foreign actors to influence voters through the spread of misinformation. The global context has moved on significantly from the 2020 APPG report in the UK. Concerns over Russian and Chinese interference can now be expanded to include potential US interference with not only Musk money, but the US administration itself hinting at active involvement in elections. The US National Security Policy, published in December 2025, stated that ‘The US will cultivate transatlantic ethno-nationalist movements’ in Europe. Whether this will amount to active meddling in party donations and elections across the continent remains to be seen.
Next steps
Political parties have been reluctant to do anything that may limit party donations, fearing that greater transparency, caps on donations, and tougher regulation during and prior to election campaigns will starve them of essential funds. The present urgency from the Government has been triggered by the Gill case which exposed specific bribery of a politician by a hostile foreign power. Such a public case has also provided an opportunity for Labour to shine the light on Reform UK’s sources of funding. The contents of the Elections Bill will be a test to see how genuine the Government is in terms of closing off the loopholes, strengthening the legal and enforcement framework, and enabling real transparency and scrutiny to create a robust system. Afterall, increased oversight reduces corruption and reduced corruption increases public trust. So best to let the sunlight in and disinfect the system.
Mark Bennister.
Mark Bennister is an experienced academic researching comparative political leadership, prime ministerial power, governance, public policy, and accountability in parliament. He is a Visiting Reader at Queen Mary, University of London, an Affiliate Research Fellow at the Bennett Institute for Public Policy, University of Cambridge, and Honorary Senior Fellow, University of Lincoln.
The Constitution Society is committed to the promotion of informed debate and is politically impartial. Any views expressed in this article are the personal views of the author and not those of The Constitution Society.