COMMUNITIES Secretary Angela Rayner said today that there was nothing cryptic about Nigel Farage’s crypto-billionaire “sugar daddies’” donation of £72 million.

She addressed TUC Congress in Brighton after the Reform UK leader hit out against the move to retrospectively apply a new law to the twin £36m gifts from Ben Delo and Christopher Harborne.

Ms Rayner said: “If you need a clue about whose side they are really on, they’ve given it to us this weekend.

“Nigel Farage’s sugar daddies made their money in crypto but there’s nothing cryptic about their motives. 

“They know full well that a Reform government would act in their interest, not the public interest.

“Now when these Reform donors say they want nothing, they mean it… nothing to stand in their way and if Farage will do a cameo for £70 just ask yourself what he would do for £70m.”

Reform UK’s deputy leader Richard Tice earlier compared the situation to Labour’s funding from trade unions who “make demands about employment rights regulations, public-sector pay and they get those demands satisfied” on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.

Ms Rayner told Congress: “How dare they try to compare money from a couple of crypto billionaires to union members’ subs — the most highly regulated political funding you can have — it couldn’t be more different from a couple of offshore billionaires trying to buy our democracy.

“So let me be clear: we will defend our democracy and our society from any fascist dictator or oligarch who seeks to divide our country and buy our politics but we will never undermine the rights of working people to organise collectively and democratically.”