LONDON (Reuters) – The British billionaire Nick Candy, a former donor to the opposition Conservative Party, is joining Nigel Farage’s Reform UK as treasurer to help the right-wing populist party improve its fundraising before the next national election.
Candy, who made his money developing luxury properties, said on Tuesday he was resigning from the Conservative Party to take up the new role next year. He said he intended “to raise enough funds” for Reform to win the next election due in 2029.
In a statement, Candy accused the Conservatives of making “too many broken promises and (of) a complete breach of trust with the wealth creators in our country”.
Candy, who is married to the Australian-British former actress and singer Holly Valance, previously gave more than 250,000 pounds ($320,000) to the Conservatives from 2020 to 2022 when Boris Johnson was prime minister.
Candy did not give any donations to the Conservatives under subsequent leaders in the run up to the party’s heaviest election defeat earlier this year amid anger over higher taxes, record immigration and a drop in living standards.
With right-wing parties making in-roads across Europe, Reform, which won 4.1 million votes or 14% of the total and five seats in parliament in the July election, is growing in support.
Reform now has more than 100,000 members compared with about 40,000 in early June.
Farage, who is a friend of U.S. President-elect Donald Trump, said recently his party was gaining voters disaffected with the Labour government and would win the next election.
($1 = 0.7848 pounds)
(Reporting by Andrew MacAskill, editing by Elizabeth Piper and Ros Russell)
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