Ed Davey announced today a package of new Lib Dem policy aimed at ensuring that foreign actors have less influence in our politics.

He called for:

Banning payments from X and other social media platforms to politicians in the UK, including MPs.
Prohibiting anyone who has served a foreign administration from donating to UK political parties, think tanks, or campaign groups.
Banning foreign-funded online political adverts altogether.

The party will pursue these through amendments to the Representation of the People Bill.

Watch here.

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Next week millions of people across Britain will go out to cast their vote and have their say over their communities and their country.

But as we see British democracy in action, we also need to recognise that our democracy is under more serious threat than at any point in my lifetime.

The threat from powerful men outside our country who are trying to destroy it – Donald Trump, Elon Musk, Vladimir Putin.

nd the threat from those inside our politics – Nigel Farage, Rupert Lowe, Reform UK – who are aiding and abetting that destruction.

Let me be direct about what is happening.

Nigel Farage and Reform UK are not a British political movement.

They are a franchise. A franchise of Trump’s MAGA politics.

Copying their tactics. Collaborating with their people. Taking Musk’s money. And carrying water for the Kremlin.

This is not the type of politics we want in our country. These are not the values we want in our communities. And these are not the people we want running our councils.

Trying to turn our great country into an outpost of Trump’s MAGA empire. What a bleak vision that is for our United Kingdom.

The threats are there. Hiding in plain sight. And we ignore them at our peril.

Donald Trump – whose National Security Strategy used far right-tropes about “civilizational erasure” and talked about “cultivating resistance” in Europe.

Who tried his hardest to keep Viktor Orbán in power in Hungary – even trying to bribe the Hungarian people with a promise of money from the US.

And how wonderful it was to see the Hungarian people throw that back in Trump’s face.

But it’s clear that Trump and his team want to try the same thing here, with Nigel Farage as their man.

And Farage gave the game away recently didn’t he – calling Trump “the boss at Mar-a-Lago”.

We know who’s pulling his strings.

But it’s more insidious than that too.

With Trump’s State Department plotting to funnel money to Reform via so-called think tanks.

No wonder we see Farage and Reform importing so much of Trump’s destructive and divisive agenda –

From rolling back gun laws to taking free healthcare away.

Anti-vaccine conspiracy theories to get-rich-quick crypto scams.

That is Trump’s America. We can’t let it become Farage’s Britain.

And then there’s the money. Together four men – Nigel Farage, Richard Tice, Lee Anderson and Rupert Lowe – have taken more than £50,000 from Elon Musk since becoming MPs.

Paid for tweeting. Just think about that –

Every one of Farage’s tweets. Every statement. Every bit of phony outrage. Every mad policy announcement –

Accompanied by a nice cheque from Elon Musk.

Who has incited violence on Britain’s streets, and called for the overthrow of the UK government.

Giving his money to Reform UK and Rupert Lowe, just for tweeting.

This is a dangerous loophole in our political funding laws.

Right now, the police are rightly looking into allegations that another Reform MP took money from a foreign businessman via his American company.

Yet here we have Farage and co taking money from Elon Musk via his American company.

It shouldn’t be allowed. And we need to close that loophole.

But the threat doesn’t only come from America.

China – we’ve seen the reach of their campaign of espionage and repression. And that’s why we’ve opposed their super embassy in London.

Iran. Backing violence against British Jews here in the UK. Why the Prime Minister must follow through on his promise to proscribe the IRGC.

And Vladimir Putin. Who has a long track record of interfering in European democracies.

The Nathan Gill scandal shows how it works.

A senior Reform politician – their leader in Wales – convicted of taking bribes to advance Putin’s agenda.

And don’t forget, when Farage was asked which world leader he most admired, his answer was Vladimir Putin.

Wittingly or unwittingly – and only he can answer that – Nigel Farage has made himself an asset of Vladimir Putin.

And the British people deserve to know it.

We cannot trust this man with our national security.

And we cannot let Reform’s toxic Trumpian politics poison our communities.

We must defend Britain’s democracy now, or risk losing it forever.

So how do we do it?

I have spoken about the need for a new Magna Carta for modern Britain.

A written constitution to protect our hard-won British rights and freedoms.

To defend our country from Trump, Putin, Musk and Farage.

But there are other crucial steps we can take too.

So our party is tabling three key amendments to the Representation of the People Bill.

First, we will ban anyone who has served a foreign administration from donating to British political parties, campaign groups, or think tanks.

Second, we will ban MPs from taking payments from X and other social media platforms. Elon Musk should not be able to use his money to interfere in British politics through the back door by calling it “content monetisation”.

And third, we will implement Philip Rycroft’s recommendation to ban foreign-funded online political ads altogether.

The government commissioned the Rycroft Review but has so far committed to implement just two of the seventeen recommendations. It should act on them all in full, urgently.

To defend our democracy from Putin, Iran – all those who want to destroy it.

But sadly, we must also guard against the new threat from Trump and MAGA.

The government should also set up a dedicated inquiry into foreign interference from the United States. So we can stop it.

British democracy has endured for centuries because each generation has been willing to defend it.

We will defend it now.

We will call out those who threaten it.

And we will not be intimidated by tech billionaires, Russian bots, or Donald Trump.

* Caron Lindsay is Editor of Liberal Democrat Voice and blogs at Caron's Musings. You can find her on Bluesky at caronmlindsay.bsky.social