I have never known a time when our democracy has felt as vulnerable as now.  Public awareness is limited of malign activities that are shaping our politics in a very ugly way.  Hostile state actors like Russia are actively seeking to sow discourse and undermine our institutions and our democracy, not only here but across Europe and the western world.

Concerns about how Russian sources manipulated social media in US presidential elections are well-documented, arguably with a degree of success given how US support to Ukraine ceased when Trump came into office.  I am concerned about funding sources to far-right political parties and individuals that Russia sees as amenable. It was ten months ago when Nathan Gill, Reform UK’s now former leader in Wales, was sentenced to 10.5 years in prison for taking Russian bribes.

It has since emerged that when Gill was arrested, he was on his way to a cryptocurrency conference in Moscow, and that the speech he was going to make was titled “The Same Technology That Gives Us Crypto Currencies Will Change the Way That We Vote”.  

I do not need to spell out why so-called Cryptocurrencies have such a bad reputation, and I am naturally suspicious of anyone who has made a fortune from them, including the two billionaires who at the weekend donated £36 million each to Reform UK.

Nigel Farage is under parliamentary investigation for his £5 million gift from one of them, and the other one was found guilty in the US of breeching anti-money laundering laws and given a ten-year probation, only to be pardoned by Reform UK’s hero, Donald Trump.

This money could buy much manipulation of social media algorithms to promote Reform’s disinformation and pay for millions of direct mail shots across the country, like we saw in this year’s double set of local elections in Crawley, where I believe a local election expense limit loophole was exploited, to spend hundreds of thousands of pounds to target every household week after week with Royal Mail deliveries from Reform.  Power is increasingly being bought, and that is a dangerous thing.

Councillor Duncan Crow, Leader of Crawley Borough Council Conservative Group

16th September 2026