Statement: 4 months on from one of the biggest political corruption scandals of our time, the task is now to finish the job.

Wednesday 25 March 2026 — The Rycroft review is a clear and welcome acknowledgement that the UK’s political finance system has fallen woefully behind the threats it now faces.

Rycroft’s recommendations – including forcing transparency behind company donations, strengthening the powers of the Electoral Commission, tightening corporate donation rules, and banning cryptocurrency donations – reflect measures our coalition has long called for. In an era of growing foreign interference and opaque funding, these are necessary steps to close some of the most obvious vulnerabilities in our system.

It’s for that reason our coalition called for a ban on cryptocurrency donations to political parties in December and has long advocated for stronger enforcement powers and resources to ensure our existing laws work as they should. This review is therefore a highly welcome step in reckoning with our broken system. 

While these measures will go some way in directly addressing many of the most obvious and exploitable gaps, there remain central weaknesses at the heart of our system. The growing dominance of big money in politics means the risks identified in this review will persist. 

The coalition is clear: you cannot fully protect elections from foreign or undue influence while allowing unlimited donations. So long as parties rely on a small number of wealthy donors, the risks this review identifies will persist, no matter how many individual rules of our system are tweaked.

If the Government is serious about safeguarding democratic integrity, it must build on this review by going further in the Representation of the People Bill: capping donations to political parties, limiting spending on elections, and commencing new, more stringent donor declarations. 

Trust in politics depends on knowing money doesn’t buy influence. People expect a system that works for everyone and the Representation of the People Bill is the chance to fix that properly, not in pieces.

The task now is to finish the job.