Former Newcastle football club owner Sir John Hall has backed Reform UK despite having donated more than £500,000 to the Conservative Party.
Nigel Farage, leader of Reform UK, announced the businessman’s backing today at an event attended by Hall in Sunderland.
Hall’s backing helped fund Theresa May’s 2017 snap election, but the donor soured on the former Prime Minister over her indecision on Brexit and unconvincing domestic policies.
Farage announced that Hall has made a substantial donation to Reform and described himself as a “huge admirer” of the businessman.
Hall said that, despite supporting the Tories “both personally and financially” for decades, he believes that “the only party, and the only politician to have the interests of Great Britain at its heart is Reform UK and Farage”.
Hall’s switch to Reform comes as Keir Starmer was forced to insist that Labour are “still fighting” for Clacton, the seat contested by Farage.
According to The Guardian, Labour had begun to withdraw support from their candidate in Clacton, Jovan Owusu-Nepaul, because officials were “furious with him getting more retweets than Starmer”.
Owusu-Nepaul had gone viral for his fashionable dress-sense, but was reportedly sent away to campaign in the West Midlands and told by Labour to “never come back to Clacton”.
Farage is due to win the seat with 45 per cent of the vote, according to YouGov’s latest MRP poll, with Labour coming third with a distant 18 percentage points.
But Starmer told The Guardian: “We’re not backing down in Clacton… we’ve got an excellent candidate there… I’m very supportive of both him and the campaign that he’s running.”
Reporting by Felix Armstrong