Writer threatened for covering Reform donor's conviction
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Another free speech warrior linked to Reform UK has set their lawyers on someone for reporting on facts about one of their donors

Reform

Ben Delo is a donor to Reform UK. He’s also a convicted criminal (since pardoned), who plead guilty to “bank secrecy act violations”.

And we possibly wouldn’t have been reporting on any of this if not for the fact that his lawyers tried to bully writer James Wilson:

Significant.

Lawyers for Reform UK donor Ben Delo say that referring to his criminal conviction is a breach of privacy law, with no “public interest”.

If highlighting the criminal records of those bankrolling UK political parties is not in the public interest, what is? https://t.co/2j0diP3fu5

— Fraser Nelson (@FraserNelson) April 11, 2026

Ben Delo — pardoned criminal

Wilson isn’t the only person to cover Delo; this is what the Telegraph wrote on 8 April:

An expat billionaire is moving back to Britain so he can legally donate millions to Reform UK after accusing Labour of trying to rig the next general election.

Ben Delo, who lives in Hong Kong, gave £4m to Reform earlier this year before the Government changed the law to put a £100,000 cap on donations from Britons living abroad.

Mr Delo has accused Sir Keir Starmer of using legislation specifically to target big-money expat Reform donors “to stack the political deck against the most popular opposition party”.

Writing for The Telegraph, the 42-year-old says he is moving to the UK so he can donate millions more to Reform and “build a war chest” for Nigel Farage, the Reform leader, to fight the next election.

Yes, because that’s the height of unfairness, isn’t it – preventing a small gang of tax exiles from ensuring the UK government is bought and paid for.

The Times, meanwhile, reported:

Ben Delo was pardoned by Trump last year, after pleading guilty to violating US money-laundering rules via his crypto firm.

He’s now moving to UK to donate to Reform – in a move set to deepen its financial dependence on crypto-billionaires.

My analysis: https://t.co/maRks88jMO https://t.co/53tBg2npA6

— Fraser Nelson (@FraserNelson) April 8, 2026

Delo’s criminal activities were a matter of public record, so word was always going to get out. In choosing to suppress the information, however, Delo might have ensured a much wider audience.

Reform — The Streisand Effect

The following is how Brittanica describe the ‘Streisand Effect‘:

Streisand effect, phenomenon in which an attempt to censor, hide, or otherwise draw attention away from something only serves to attract more attention to it. The name derives from American singer and actress Barbra Streisand’s lawsuit against a photographer in 2003, which drew attention to the photo she was suing to have taken off the Internet.

Demonstrating how ineffective the Streisand Effect is, the following image is the one which Barbara attempted to have banished from the web:

We would never have had reason to post the above, but here we are.

The fact that Reform donor Ben Delo was convicted for financial crimes is the sort of thing we would ordinarily look at; we’re just noting more people will hear about it as a result of the man’s lawfare tactics.

This is how Wilson described the legal action:

Wow. I’ve just received a threatening letter from Ben Delo’s solicitors Addleshaw Goddard.

They are claiming, among other things, that it is unlawful to publish information about Delo’s conviction for an anti-money laundering offence in the US.

They also say I cannot publish their letter. An extract is below.

Is Delo going to get his solicitors to threaten everyone who mentions his conviction? How is this not a SLAPP?

We’ll explain what ‘SLAPP’ is later, but for now let’s look at some of the response to Wilson’s reporting:

Indeed. Right wingers are implacably opposed to the ECHR right up to the point when they want to rely on it.

— James Wilson (@per_incuriam2) April 11, 2026

The Telegraph interviewed him last December referencing those very legal issues in the same write up. Ironically enough the article was framed around his battle for free speech…https://t.co/5RI2wNghLR

— Jay (@JibbaJabb) April 10, 2026

But it’s on the DOJ website! It’s a matter of public record. Perhaps you need to tell his solicitors to shove their letter up their arse. 🤔 pic.twitter.com/pBiDJcWC6N

— Colonel Panick (@FlackJimmmy) April 10, 2026

It’s bullshit. The conviction is recent. A presidential pardon is contingent on acceptance of guilt. Who are these SLAPPY lawyers @per_incuriam2? https://t.co/z3aEUNNjyp

— Peter Jukes (@peterjukes) April 10, 2026

I wonder if there’s a connection between Farage’s friend Trump pardoning convicted criminal Ben Delo, and Delo donating £4m to Reform.

— Mr Ethical 🚩 (@nw_nicholas) April 11, 2026

This is the Streisand Effect in full swing.

Oh, and while we’re here, we should draw your attention to some other stories regarding dodgy Reform donors:

Reform — SLAPPed

For those out of the know, ‘SLAPP’ stands for ‘Strategic Lawsuits against Public Participation’. UK Anti-SLAPP Coalition describe them as follows:

an abusive lawsuit filed by a private party with the purpose of silencing critical speech.

They add:

SLAPPS exploit the law in order to covertly, yet aggressively, intimidate public watchdogs into self-censorship.

In other words, SLAPPs are a means for the rich to silence the rest of us.

Demonstrating how achingly apparent this is, they further explain:

While SLAPPs tend to lack legal merit and usually end up being dismissed once the facts of the case have been presented in court, this is not the point. The amount of time, energy, and money involved in even getting before a judge is vast and can be prohibitive, especially in cases where an individual (as opposed to an organisation) has to foot the bill for their own legal defence.

The reality is most SLAPPs never make it to court – either by design as the claimant will use every opportunity to drag out proceedings to increase the cost and impact of the SLAPP, or by the target of the SLAPPs stepping back to avoid the ever-escalating financial burden.

SLAPPs don’t just punish citizens for speaking the truth; they also discourage people from speaking out in the first place:

Just the threat of a SLAPP can be intimidating enough for someone to feel that they should discontinue their research or reporting, or to remove their report from circulation if it has already been published. This is true even though the information is in the public interest and the person can prove that it is accurate.

The Anti-SLAPP Coalition add that these frivolous lawsuits are a growing problem in the UK:

Research by the Foreign Policy Centre and other members of the UK Anti-SLAPP Coalition has found that SLAPPs are on the rise and that the UK is the number one originator of abusive legal actions. In fact, the UK has been identified as the leading source of SLAPPs, almost as frequent a source as all European Union countries and the United States combined

The Truth

Regarding the best way to defend against a SLAPP, Mr Ethical noted the following:

For anyone receiving a SLAPP from Delo’s lawyers I would refer them to the famous case of Arkell v Pressdram where Private Eye wrote this to lawyers threatening libel action

The response in question was as follows (emphasis added):

We note that Mr Arkell’s attitude to damages will be governed by the nature of our reply and would therefore be grateful if you would inform us what his attitude to damages would be, were he to learn that the nature of our reply is as follows: fuck off.

Fuck off indeed.

Featured image via the Canary

By Willem Moore

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