‘Nigel Farage Will be Prime Minister’: Billionaire Former Tory Donor Joins Reform as Treasurer

Billionaire property developer Nick Candy says he can out-fundraise any other British political party to get Nigel Farage the backing he needs to win the next national election in the latest high-profile defection to Reform UK.

Brexit veteran Nigel Farage says his Reform UK is showing it is the only political party in the UK with momentum as it recruited billionaire businessman Nick Candy of Candy Property, behind one of the largest property development deals in British history as party treasurer. Candy is a former big-money donor to the Conservative Party and has vowed to donate a million-pound sum of his own money to the party, as well as fundraising from others.

Candy is married to British pop star Holly Valance, and both are already known in right-wing circles in the UK, and have cut campaign cheques to Farage earlier this year. The pair, who were introduced to Donald Trump by Nigel Farage in 2022, hosted a record-breaking fundraiser for the Republicans Abroad campaign for Trump earlier this year.

Just hours after Candy’s defection to Reform was announced, Farage also announced another defection, of former Conservative Member of Parliament Aidan Burley.

Speaking on Tuesday, new Reform UK treasurer Candy cited the aspiration that the United Kingdom had once fostered, giving him room as the grandson of Cypriot migrants in the early 1990s to build a business empire. He told GB News: “our country is in decline. I have friends across the political spectrum, I have some very good friends in the Labour Party, I have some very good friends in the Tory party. They will always be my friends but I genuinely think it is time for a change in direction, and that change in direction is Reform and Nigel Farage.”

The former Tory had been so disaffected with what he called the broken promises of the Conservatives he’s even tacitly backed Starmer in the recent past in an apparent bid to destroy the Conservative Party, but he made clear Labour had well and truly squandered any opportunity they had for positive change. Candy said: “Labour have got it so wrong already. You can’t tax your way out of this problem, you’ve got to grow the economy.”

On money, Candy said he could out-fundraise any other UK political party, stating he could top the £40 million election funds the big legacy parties had previously managed to amass, saying this would be a mix of large donors like himself and the thousands of small gifts from the wider public, on which Reform has generally subsided until recently. He said: “I’m not a politician, I don’t want to be a politician. But what I can do is I’m very good at raising funds for businesses… and I’ll make sure Reform UK has the right funds to run their operations and business correctly… already this morning I’ve had millions of pounds worth of donations”.

“Nigel Farage will be Prime Minister of this country”, said Candy, further telling The Sun newspaper: “I will raise Reform more money than any political party in the UK has ever raised – Nigel is going to be the PM”. Mr Farage responded in turn, calling Candy a “formidable” businessman who will help Reform fund the English County Council elections in may.

While County Councillors won’t hand Reform a great deal of power immediately, having such a grassroots force is essential to wider electoral success in the United Kingdom and lacking this layer has been cited as a major factor holding back Reform and Farage’s previous party incarnations in the past.