Christopher Harborne

Last updated

Christopher Harborne
BornDecember 1962 (age 61)
NationalityBritish
Other namesChakrit Sakunkrit
Citizenship United Kingdom, Thailand
Education Westminster School
Alma mater Downing College, Cambridge
INSEAD
TitleChief Executive Officer
Board member ofSherriff Global Group

Christopher Charles Sherriff Harborne (born December 1962) is a British businessman and technology investor based in Thailand. A University of Cambridge and INSEAD graduate, his donations have enabled the founding of INSEAD San Francisco and the creation of a blockchain research fund. He has also donated to Britain's Conservative Party and more recently has been a major donor to Britain's Brexit Party, donating more than £6 million in 2019. [1] As well as personal donations to Reform UK's Nigel Farage. [2]

Contents

He also holds Thai citizenship under the name Chakrit Sakunkrit. [3]

Early life and education

Christopher Harborne was born in December 1962. He was educated at Westminster School and is a graduate of Downing College, University of Cambridge, from where he received the degrees of MA, MEng and MBA. [4] He also received an MBA from the Institut européen d'administration des affaires (INSEAD) in 1988. [5]

Career

Harborne worked for five years as a management consultant at McKinsey and Co., before running a research company in Asia. He describes himself as an "investor in new tech, including open software blockchain platforms". [6] [7] He is the CEO of Sherriff Global Group which trades in private planes, and the owner of AML Global, a firm that sells aviation fuel. [8] He has made a donation to enable the founding of INSEAD San Francisco and to create a Blockchain Research Fund. [5] He has set up a company, Singular AI Consulting Limited, with crypto-currency miner Marco Streng. [6] As of December 2019, he is based in Thailand. [6] [9]

Political donations

Harborne donated more than £6m to the Brexit Party in 2019, [6] £3 million in the summer [8] and £3 million before the United Kingdom general election in 2019, [6] making him the largest donor that year. [9] His sister Katharine, a scientist and artist who was previously a councillor for the Conservative Party, has been a candidate for the Brexit Party. [10] Before switching his donations to the Brexit Party, [11] Harborne had donated smaller sums, averaging £15,000 per annum since 2001, to the Conservative Party. In November 2022, Harborne donated £1 million to The Office of Boris Johnson Ltd, one of the biggest donations ever made to an individual British politician. [12]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">UK Independence Party</span> British political party

The UK Independence Party is a Eurosceptic, right-wing populist political party in the United Kingdom. The party reached its greatest level of success in the mid-2010s, when it gained two members of parliament and was the largest party representing the UK in the European Parliament. The party is currently led by Nick Tenconi.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nigel Farage</span> British politician and broadcaster (born 1964)

Nigel Paul Farage is a British politician and broadcaster who has been Member of Parliament (MP) for Clacton and Leader of Reform UK since 2024, having previously been its leader from 2019 to 2021. He was the leader of the UK Independence Party (UKIP) from 2006 to 2009 and 2010 to 2016. Farage served as a member of the European Parliament (MEP) for South East England from 1999 until the UK's withdrawal from the European Union (EU) in 2020.

Paul Sykes is an English businessman and political donor. He opposed Britain's membership of the European Union and has donated to the UK Independence Party. He had previously supported the Conservative Party, but disagreed with its support of the Maastricht Treaty.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Douglas Carswell</span> British politician

John Douglas Wilson Carswell is a British former politician who served as a Member of Parliament from 2005 to 2017, co-founded Vote Leave and currently serves as president and CEO of the Mississippi Center for Public Policy.

Annunziata Mary Rees-Mogg is a British freelance journalist whose focus is finance, economics, and European politics. She was a Brexit Party, then Conservative politician, during 2019 and into early 2020. Rees-Mogg has been a leader writer for The Daily Telegraph, deputy editor of MoneyWeek, and editor of the European Journal, a Eurosceptic magazine owned by Bill Cash's think tank, the European Foundation.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Stuart Wheeler</span> British businessman and politician (1935–2020)

John Stuart Wheeler was a British financier, gambler and political activist. He made his fortune as the founder of the spread betting firm IG Index in 1974, but was best known for his political activism, being a major donor to the Conservative Party and treasurer of the UK Independence Party from 2011 to 2014.

Jeremy John Hosking is a British businessman and political donor. Ranked number 351 in the Sunday Times Rich List 2019, with a net worth of £375 million, he is a shareholder in Crystal Palace and a noted railway enthusiast. He has donated heavily to the Reclaim Party.

Arron Fraser Andrew Banks is a British businessman and political donor. He is the co-founder of the Leave.EU campaign. Banks was previously one of the largest donors to the UK Independence Party (UKIP) and helped Nigel Farage's campaign for Britain to leave the EU.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">2019 European Parliament election in the United Kingdom</span> 2019 election of members of the European Parliament for the United Kingdom

The 2019 European Parliament election was the United Kingdom's component of the 2019 European Parliament election. It was held on Thursday 23 May 2019 and the results announced on Sunday 26 and Monday 27 May 2019, after all the other EU countries had voted. This was the United Kingdom's final participation in a European Parliament election before leaving the European Union on 31 January 2020, and was also the last election to be held under the provisions of the European Parliamentary Elections Act 2002 before its repeal under the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018 and was the first European election in the United Kingdom to be held on a day that did not coincide with any local elections since 1999. This was the first of two national elections that would be held in the United Kingdom in 2019 with the 2019 general election being held six months later in December 2019.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Labour Leave</span> Left-wing Eurosceptic organization in the UK

Labour Leave is a Eurosceptic campaign group in the United Kingdom. The group is unofficially affiliated with the Labour Party, and campaigned for the United Kingdom to vote to withdraw from the European Union, in the June 2016 EU Referendum. The group was led by eurosceptic Labour MPs: Graham Stringer, Kelvin Hopkins, and Roger Godsiff.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Richard Tice</span> British businessman and politician (born 1964)

Richard James Sunley Tice is a British businessman and politician who has been Member of Parliament (MP) for Boston and Skegness and Deputy Leader of Reform UK since 2024, having previously been the chairman of the party from 2019 to 2021 and again briefly in 2024. Since 2023, he has also been Reform UK's energy and foreign-policy spokesman. He became the leader of Reform UK in March 2021, but stood down in June 2024 and was succeeded by Nigel Farage.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Leave Means Leave</span> UK pro-Brexit political pressure group

Leave Means Leave was a pro-Brexit, Eurosceptic political pressure group organisation that campaigned and lobbied for the United Kingdom to leave the European Union following the 'Leave' result of the EU referendum on 23 June 2016. The campaign was co-chaired by British property entrepreneur Richard Tice and business consultant John Longworth. The vice-chairman was Leader of the Brexit Party, Nigel Farage.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Reform UK</span> Right-wing political party in the United Kingdom

Reform UK is a right-wing populist political party in the United Kingdom. Nigel Farage has served as the party's leader since June 2024 and Richard Tice has served as the party's deputy leader since July 2024. The party currently has five members of Parliament (MPs) in the House of Commons and one member of the London Assembly. Following Farage's resumption of the leadership during the 2024 general election, there was a sharp increase in support for the party. In the election it was the third largest party by popular vote, with 14.3 per cent of the vote.

Catherine Blaiklock is an English nationalist politician, financial trader and hotelier who was the founder and first leader of the Brexit Party, a political party established in January 2019 to support a no-deal Brexit. She was forced to resign as leader in March 2019 when it was disclosed she had made anti-Islamic and racist statements online. Blaiklock had been the Economics Spokesperson for the UK Independence Party (UKIP), which she left in late 2018. Before entering politics in 2016, she worked as a financial currency and derivatives trader. She also founded a Nepali healthcare charity with her ex-husband, an Everest Sherpa.

Alexandra Lesley Phillips is a British journalist, broadcaster, and former politician.

Matthew Richard Patten is a former British politician, who represented the Brexit Party. He was a Member of the European Parliament (MEP) for the East Midlands between 2019 and the United Kingdom's withdrawal from the EU on 31 January 2020. He had previously been a Conservative councillor for Bradfield, Wix and Wrabness in Tendring District, Essex.

The 2019 United Kingdom general election of 12 December 2019 saw many new pieces of politics-related jargon enter popular use.

This article lists the election results of the Brexit Party, known since 2021 as Reform UK, in UK parliamentary elections and in elections to the European Parliament in 2019.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Reclaim Party</span> Political party in the United Kingdom

The Reclaim Party is a right-wing populist political party in the United Kingdom. It was launched in 2020 by English political activist and former actor Laurence Fox, with all of its funding from a single donor, Jeremy Hosking. It does not solicit donations or charge membership fees.

References

  1. ↑ "Tories raised three times as much as Labour in pre-election donations". the Guardian. 27 February 2020. Retrieved 27 February 2020.
  2. ↑ https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm/cmregmem/240804/farage_nigel.htm@ [ bare URL ]
  3. ↑ Zorzut, Adrian (22 September 2020). "Nigel Farage refuses to answer questions about £10m Brexit Party donor with two separate identities". The New European. Archived from the original on 1 October 2020. Retrieved 22 September 2020.
  4. ↑ Christopher Harborne. Downing College Cambridge. Retrieved 15 December 2019.
  5. 1 2 Christopher Harborne MBA’88J makes founding gift for INSEAD San Francisco and supports blockchain research. INSEAD. Retrieved 15 December 2019.
  6. 1 2 3 4 5 "Man in the Eye: Christopher Harborne", Private Eye, No. 1511, 13 December 2019, p. 10.
  7. ↑ Christopher Harborne: Brexit Party’s bankroller has a Thai doppelgänger. Dominic Kennedy & Oliver Wright, The Times, 27 November 2019. Retrieved 15 December 2019. (subscription required)
  8. 1 2 Former Tory donor gave Brexit Party £3m donation, new figures reveal. Alain Tolhurst, PoliticsHome, 26 November 2019. Retrieved 15 December 2019.
  9. 1 2 General election 2019: Who is paying for the election? Mark D'Arcy, BBC News, 7 December 2019. Retrieved 15 December 2019.
  10. ↑ Tories have betrayed us, says Brexit election candidate. Henley Standard, 6 September 2019. Retrieved 15 December 2019.
  11. ↑ Brexit Party receives more than £1m in donations amid speculation over snap election. Lizzy Buchan, The Independent, 29 August 2019. Retrieved 15 December 2019.
  12. ↑ "Boris Johnson given £1m donation by former Brexit party backer". the Guardian. 12 January 2023. Retrieved 17 January 2023.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.