Reform's Dubious Donations
PART FOUR — The End?
Welcome back. If you are reading this before Part One, Two or Three, may I kindly point you there first. It will save a lot of time and raising of hands with questions. Here is Part One:
Reform's Dubious Donations
When I started writing this article I naively thought that it could be a one-and-done feature, but, as things moved along, it transpired that there is too much information to fit into one piece. So this is Part One.
Thank you for getting to the final part of this series. It’s been a lot to take in, and I hope, like me, you are more informed about the background of Reform’s financial sources. We have a few more characters to cover before this wraps up, but I wanted to point out a few things first.
All the information I have written about is in the public domain already, and some of it has been covered in the past by great outlets such as Open Democracy and Byline Times. The Observer, as I mentioned in Part One, is really on top of this stuff. What Mr. 𝕏 and I have done is a fine-toothed comb, deep dive into a great many donors and collated it into four articles, that can serve as a useful resource to anyone that wishes to use it. But it isn’t the end, not by a long chalk … Reform UK are ramping up their campaigning for the next election and that needs money, a lot of money — it’s why people like George Cottrell are involved, fundraising.
I and others that look into this stuff are worried — the advent of crypto, and Farage’s ties to it, mean that things will become even more opaque in the world of political donations. It will be even harder for us to keep tabs on where their money comes from — I wrote about this in a previous article. Our regulatory bodies are frantically pedalling trying to keep up, but the Reform machine is designed in a way that allows it to manipulate old regulations; they constantly move the boundaries and our outdated systems cannot keep up.
Look at GB News, for example — not a news channel, apparently. The boundary was shifted to allow, what is, most definitely, a news channel to identify in a way that skirts OFCOM rules. I know of many people that have complained about the lack of balance, about Reform MPs having their own shows, but what happened? Nothing. They shifted the boundary slightly and made it an ‘opinion channel’, despite being called GB NEWS.
OFCOM are not fleet of foot; they can’t adapt to this constantly swirling vortex of bamboozlement from Reform and its money … this is why I think it’s vital that we keep tabs on them. As we’ve seen from the three previous articles, there are heavily questionable sources that Reform UK has accepted cash from — maybe just one of these will provide an Al Capone moment.
I am often accused of being obsessed with Reform and Farage — perhaps that’s true, to a degree. What I am more obsessed with, however, is halting this incessant march towards a far-right, fascist government. Just look across the Atlantic to see how that is playing out; it’s an absolute horror show, and we don’t even see very much of it. Make no mistake — Farage is being highly paid to bring this to fruition in the UK. If we keep shouting about the fossil fuel lobbying or the crypto advertising, or the dubious sources of donations, then, perhaps one day, our legacy and broadcast media might as well.
Reform are not a credible political outfit, you only have to watch an interview with Zia Yusuf or Richard Tice; they crumble under the most minute levels of scrutiny and always resort to anger and tetchy responses. The reason we are being force-fed their views, on a daily, if not hourly basis, is the money behind them. They are not used to having a light shone upon them and, like so many Hammer Horror vampires, start to recoil in its glare. Imagine the column inches a paper could get out of just one of these dubious donors — if they truly wanted to.
Let’s move on to the last few interesting donors and wrap things up. For now.
Bassim Haidar
An ultra wealthy businessman and entrepreneur, and as most of Reform’s current financial backers, an ex-Tory. He recently started donating to Reform UK, and in the year to date has thrown £225,000 their way. His publically stated ambition, though, is to become a million pound donor to Farage et al.
Mr Haidar is a very fascinating man and has been successful in many and varied industries. In May 2024, an article in the Guardian1 reported that he was exceptionally unhappy about the Conservative plan to end the non-dom tax benefits in the UK, and planned to leave — he has not. Instead, he appears to be backing Nigel Farage to deliver deregulation across the financial sector — a plan that was laid out yesterday in the latests in a series of seemingly endless Reform press conferences.
I have included Bassim Haidar, not as a dubious donor, but actually one that is highly credible and, in my mind is trying to manipulate, what he sees as a potential gold mine in Reform UK. With their entire policy base on sale to the highest bidder, you can see why billionaires are hovering. Farage and a great many of his hedge fund cronies, allegedly, made a fortune by shorting the pound on the eve of the Brexit vote. Imagine what they could achieve with the reins of power over the entire country.
Again, and I’d like to make this crystal clear — I am, in no way, accusing any of the donors I’ve mentioned, or the Reform cabal, of financial impropriety. I’m only asking questions.
The last thing of interest to note about Bassim Haidar is that, on a cursory Google search of his name, the very first result handed over by the Google fairies is from the World Economic Forum — WEF. The WEF is seen by many on the right as a shady global controlling agency that has levers in every government that they can pull to exert globalist control. Nonsense of course. Many in the burgeoning far-right, of which I include Trump and Farage, are extremely anti-WEF — they see it as an enemy of free market Libertarianism — that woolly excuse for corruption.
Bassim Haidar is a fully paid up member of the WEF, so I included this name to show that Farage, truly, doesn’t care where his money comes from. Morals? Pah, who needs morals.
OK, we’re at the last entry in this series.
Interior Architecture Landscape Limited
I’ve saved this one until the end because it really does have some intriguing details and, before I begin, will tip my hat to the work of One Finance Guy again. He has done a great deal on this company — check out his work over on 𝕏.2
There are threads that lead in every direction from this company name. Ties to Iran, Kazakhstan and even some tenuous links to Russia [of course] but I’m going to save the juiciest bits and prepare an entire article to this business in the coming weeks. But, for now, thanks to One Finance Guy, we know that this company is likely owned by Hossain (Sasan) and Yassmin Ghandehari. Hossain is the son of reclusive property billionaire, Hourieh Peramaa — a Kazakh-born, Iranian national.
Last month the Guardian ran an article3 on this company that saw fit to donate huge sums to Reform UK, and concluded that, at the very least, it was dubious, having been originated in the British Virgin Islands in 2013. There are two names that stem from this business — David Robin Simpson and John Richard Simpson, both listed as Directors, although the former has now resigned. These are the two names that span a great many businesses throughout this story, going all the way back to Royal Mansion Limited — the name of the £50 million mansion on Bishop’s Avenue in London. The house bought by Hourieh Peramaa on billionaire’s row.
As an aside, Peramaa’s name was part of the Panama Papers leaks in 2016.4
Back to the Reform of it … this company was due to be wound up by Companies house in April of this year but then was pulled back from the brink, one month before making £100,000 worth of donations to Farage. As always, there isn’t anything, technically, wrong with this and, as the Guardian stated, Reform claim to have performed due diligence on the donor, as required under rules of the Electoral Commission. We’ll see …
So we’re at the end of Part Four, and we haven’t even touched the £289,961.01 that Reform UK has had to return to impermissible donors — one of whom gave £10,000 called David McGowan, that makes me jump whenever I scroll past the name that looks like mine.
Due to the nature of the beast, donations to Reform UK will keep rolling in, and I will keep checking them periodically; if anything pops up then I will be sure to let you know. But, in the meantime, if you’d like to subscribe [for free or paid] then you’ll never miss anything that arises. For example, my next article surrounds the mysterious new Reform UK, Christian advisor, James Orr. That will be along this week.
I want to extend a seriously heartfelt thanks to Mr. 𝕏. He’s put an awful lot of time into this as well, and I truly appreciate his help.
Please feel free to contact me with any questions or if you think you may have a story. I’m often on 𝕏 @donmcgowan or you can drop me an email, donmcgowan@pm.me. Thank you.
If you made it here, thank you. If you haven’t signed up, then please do — it doesn’t have to be a paid subscription. I will put out my main pieces for free, but I don’t get paid for anything I do here, so if you are feeling generous, I would be eternally grateful, and you’d be helping me get stuck into more investigations. No worries if not, though. 😃
Source: The Guardian
Source: One Finance Guy on 𝕏
Source: The Guardian
Source: Offshore Leaks Website