Just after midday on a spring Saturday in 2022, a helicopter hovered into view over the Chiltern Hills and touched down in the grounds of the Chequers estate. This was not an unusual occurrence. Chequers is the official country residence of the UK prime minister and the immaculate grass lawn that doubles as its secure helipad has welcomed an array of presidents and heads of state.
But this particular helicopter’s passenger, Christopher Harborne, was neither. Until recently, he was one of Britain’s lowest-profile billionaires. There are no photos from that day but his usual look is best described as off-duty Tory: pink trousers, a checked shirt, maybe a fleece; whatever else Harborne does with his billions, he doesn’t wear it on his sleeves.
On 7 May 2022, Boris Johnson was still prime minister and the visitor who arrived at 12.24pm was the Conservative party’s latest catch. In the early months of 2022, Harborne, a little-known cryptobillionaire who had previously donated £13.7m to Nigel Farage’s Brexit party, had switched allegiances and donated more than £1m to the Conservatives.
Just one day earlier, he’d donated £500,000. By the standards of UK politics, this made him a whale.
Harborne owns 12% of Tether, according to US legal filings – an issuer of a so-called “stablecoin” cryptocurrency that, on paper, is worth between $45bn and $60bn. The Sunday Times Rich List estimates Harborne is worth £18.2bn, so, by his standards, £1m is less whale, more tadpole. Nevertheless, it appears to have secured him a solo Chequers lunch.
We know all this because of a set of leaked documents from Boris Johnson’s private office, known as the Boris Files, some – but not all – of which have been previously reported by the Guardian. A record is kept, minute by minute, of how the UK prime minister spends his days, and on this particular day, that included three and a half hours with Harborne, most of it alone or with Johnson’s most senior adviser.
Now, Harborne is best known for giving £5m to Nigel Farage, a gift Farage failed to declare on entering parliament, which is now the subject of a parliamentary standards investigation, and which in the last fortnight the Reform UK leader has failed to adequately explain in a succession of media interviews.
Last week, the Nerve revealed that Johnson may have also breached the same parliamentary rules in not declaring a gift of two private jet flights from Harborne for a trip to Ukraine in 2023, after he’d stepped down as prime minister but was still a sitting MP.
Neither Johson nor Harborne responded to any of the Nerve’s queries. Harborne, through his lawyers, Schillings, refused to answer our questions and threatened us with defamation proceedings, while refusing to note what, if any, of the underlying statements we sent were potentially defamatory. When the Guardian previously reported on the leaked documents Johnson said: “Your pathetic non-stories… seem mostly to be derived from some illegal Russian hack job.”
This is the backstory of how Harborne came to be not just Farage’s golden goose, but Johnson’s too. And, as with Farage, it raises the question of whether this was a relationship that went beyond politics. Because, as with Farage, they had financial ties that appear to continue after Johnson left office. In fact, two months after Johnson stepped down as prime minister, as has been reported previously, Harborne also gave him a personal gift – of £1m.
There is no public explanation from either Johnson or Harborne as to why.
In the last article in our series, we detailed how Harborne didn’t just pay for Johnson’s flights to Ukraine for a meeting with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in January 2023 – he also appears to have accompanied him on the trip. And this is where we take the story up.
The business of defence
It’s fair to say that Harborne had his own interest in Ukraine’s war effort, He is the biggest individual shareholder in QinetiQ, a UK defence technology company that has multimillion-pound contracts with the Ministry of Defence, a company integrally involved in developing and supplying advanced military technology to Ukraine.
The Chequers visit – just eight months before the Ukraine visit – marked an important milestone in Johnson and Harborne’s relationship. It’s a relationship that tracks with Harborne’s donations to the Conservatives, as one might expect. But, less expectedly, the Nerve has found that it’s a relationship that also appears to be in lockstep with Harborne’s interest in QinetiQ.
That interest is publicly visible in financial trades that Harborne made through the summer of 2022. The day just before his visit to Chequers marked the beginning of a buying spree as his holding in QinetiQ rapidly increased through the summer of 2022.
Defence stocks had been rising throughout that year and QinetiQ’s share price ended the year 31% up. But there are aspects of the timing of Harborne’s investments that raises questions about his relationship with Johnson, which the Nerve is setting out for the first time here.
In previous articles in this series, the Nerve has revealed the entwined interests in cryptocurrency between Harborne, Farage and Johnson. In another, we reported on an alleged deal between Farage and Johnson and Harborne before the 2019 general election.
But what has gone under the radar until now is Johnson and Harborne’s mutual and joint interest in advanced military technology and a British company that’s been described as the British military’s experimental testing lab: QinetiQ.
If there was one man who would have inside information on Britain’s investments in military technology, including a once-in-a-generation new aerospace programme, it would surely be the prime minister?
The logo of British defence company QinetiQ Group. Photo illustration: Getty
Lunch at Chequers and Harborne’s first trade
The day before his jaunt to Chequers and his lunch with Johnson, Harborne made two financial transactions. The first was a £500,000 donation to the Conservative party (although the gift would not be officially marked as “accepted” until the following week, on the 11th).
The second was a major investment into QinetiQ. On that day – 6 May 2022 – Harborne passed a significant reporting threshold, with the company issuing a notice that he’d acquired a 3.2% stake in the company.
Formed in 2001, QinetiQ has a curious and somewhat turbulent history. Spun out of the MoD’s evaluation and research department by MoD managers, it effectively privatised the UK’s most advanced defence technology lab. In 2006, the company was floated, making the management team millions. A report from the National Audit Office was scathing about the lack of value returned to UK taxpayers and kicked off a political storm.
The UK government retains a “special share” in the company but receives no financial benefit, although a revolving door sees it maintain close ties with the firm. Ben Wallace, Johnson’s defence secretary, was previously a director in the firm’s security and intelligence division.
In the run-up to the meeting, Johnson had been busy too. Emmanuel Macron had recently been elected president in France and the Cabinet Office released an official call with him in which Johnson “shared his conviction that Ukraine would win [the war with Russia], supported with the right level of defensive military assistance”.
Russia had invaded Ukraine in February 2022, and the war was still in its early days. The world was in shock and Boris Johnson had proved himself to be a passionate support of Zelenskyy's fight – to the surprise of many.
The other guest who arrived at Chequers that day may help to explain why that wasn’t necessarily a foregone conclusion. Forty-two minutes before Harborne choppered in, Ben Elliot arrived. Elliot, the founder of concierge company Quintessentially, was the Conservatives’ money man, the co-chair of the party, and an expert in raising funds – a skill that had helped in both his political and commercial life.
Quintessentially provided high-level concierge services to clients who included high net worth individuals from across the globe. That spring, Elliot had faced increasing heat over his ties to soon-to-be sanctioned Russian oligarchs – including Roman Abramovich – and in March he’d shut his Moscow office. But for years, those contacts had helped grease the wheels of not only his business but also the Conservative party.
These were the peak Londongrad years, when Johnson had played tennis with a former Russian minister’s wife for a £160,000 donation. That spring, more and more questions were being asked about the peerage he’d granted to the son of an FSB colonel, Evgeny Lebedev. But that gravy train was now gone and the party desperately needed a new source of funds. Harborne was a significant new catch.
From the outside, it’s not easy to parse Harborne’s political views. He rarely speaks publicly and it’s unclear whether his interest in politics is ideological or opportunistic or both. Two years earlier, he was close to Farage and bankrolled his Brexit party to the tune of £13.7m. Two years later, he gave him £5m and is today Reform’s biggest donor.
But in between, there was Johnson. And Chequers is the beginning of what appears to be some sort of partnership. Or maybe it would be more accurately described as a friends-with-benefits arrangement in which the benefits are obvious for Johnson (£1m) and opaque (for what in return?) for Harborne.
According to the logs, Elliot appears to have stayed for lunch, leaving at 15.44, followed shortly afterwards by Harborne. There is no record of the conversation. On Sunday, Johnson would talk with Zelenskyy – a call that the log indicates was prep for the G7 summit, where Johnson would be busy the following month.
For Harborne, the next days and weeks are a flurry of buying activity. That Monday, 9 May, he bought more QinetiQ stock, increasing his holding to 4.25%. Financial analysts say that for a purchase of this size, Harborne probably paid a premium against the trading price.
Three days later, on Thursday, he bought more QinetiQ stock, taking his holding up to 5.1%. On 25 May, he bought more shares, with the company issuing a notification that he'd passed the 6% threshold and now owned 7.08%. A week later he gave another £15,000 to the Conservatives.
Harborne had flipped. He was now a Conservative donor and the prime minister’s lunch companion, but the connection wasn’t yet visible
By 5 June, the story had caught the Telegraph's attention. It announced Harborne had “become [Qinetiq’s] third-biggest shareholder in less than a month” and now held 7.1% of the company, having acquired 41m shares worth £150m.
It described the company as making “robots for the military and developing top-secret laser weapons technology”.
But the Telegraph’s headline and introduction are wrong, or at least incomplete. It describes Harborne as a “major donor to Nigel Farage’s political party Reform UK” (the successor to the Brexit party). In fact, we now know he was donating – substantially – to the Conservatives, but the Electoral Commission’s quarterly reporting schedule meant that this wasn’t yet public.
Harborne had flipped. He was now a Conservative donor and the prime minister’s lunch companion. If that had been known, maybe that would have been the headline, but the connection – and what it might mean – wasn’t yet visible. It’s taken four years to even surface it, let alone ask questions about it.
Defence stocks were a shrewd investment in 2022. Ukraine needed weapons and its European and US allies were trying to help supply them. But, following his buying spree, it appeared that Harborne might have bought a dud. In the weeks after the Chequers visit, QinetiQ’s share price softened and then fell, part of an industrywide “correction”.
Harborne wasn’t an experienced defence investor. Public records viewed by the Nerve suggest it was his only investment, to date, in the industry. Maybe it was just beginner’s bad luck. Then, out of the blue, QinetiQ caught a break – news that was delivered by Harborne’s new friend, prime minister Boris Johnson.
The Tempest
On 18 July 2022, Johnson stepped out on the stage of the Farnborough Air Show and stood in front of what looked like something out of The Jetsons: a futuristic plane-cum-spaceship. It was a model of a brand-new, never-before-seen fighter jet, the supersonic Tempest, which defence secretary Ben Wallace announced would be airborne within five years. Britain would be spearheading a next-generation fighter jet programme in partnership with Italy and Japan.
Britain’s last fighter jet, the Typhoon, had entered service in 2003. Tempest, the first new British jet in two decades, was a multimillion-pound, once-in-a-generation investment in the future of warfare. And Johnson appeared to drink in the moment. He reminded the crowd of Farnborough’s importance in British aviation history, quoted US pilot-poet John Gillespie Magee Jr (“I have slipped the burly bonds of Earth”) and then talked at length about his own grandfather’s career flying Wellington bombers. It was, he noted, the “last climactic weeks of my time as prime minister”.
Displays of the proposed jet fighter aircraft Tempest, during the Farnborough Airshow, in Farnborough, July 2022. Photo: Getty
The speech is Johnson at his best. Just over a week earlier he'd announced his resignation. He was still PM and had said he'd stay in the role until a new leader was elected, but the pressure was off. Relaxed and in his element, it’s a rare moment in which he appears not only on top of his brief but is clearly passionate about it. Finally, he cut to the chase. “And that’s why I’m so obsessed with the Future Combat Air System and Tempest and everything that involves,” he said. The Tempest would be “not just a plane but a whole platform for technological change”.
QinetiQ’s share price jumped. In fact, it had begun climbing two days earlier on the rumour, jumped on the announcement and again in the weeks that followed. QinetiQ would play a vital role in the new programme, including the development of advanced electronic warfare systems, though that wouldn’t become fully apparent until November with the announcement of an official £31m MoD contract.
Did Johnson discuss this new jet fighter programme or any other defence matter with Harborne? “We’ll never know, will we?” says Susan Hawley from Spotlight on Corruption, pointing to a “gaping hole” in Britain’s laws on lobbying. “Because no one has to declare it. And it means that donors can wield huge influence without anyone ever knowing.”
She makes the comparison to the Mandelson scandal and what has been revealed to happen behind closed doors. She added: “If there is compelling evidence that insider information has been shared in this case, it is essential that there is a robust criminal investigation.”
Boris Johnson did not respond to the Nerve’s inquiries. Harborne’s lawyers, Schillings, responded to say that that we had misread the Electoral Register’s record of donations. When we sent them a screenshot of the register, they did not respond further.
By the time of the Farnborough show and Johnson’s announcement on 18 July, Harborne had bought 10% of QinetiQ’s entire stock. Significantly, he was also now the largest single controller of the company’s voting rights.
And he’d made other changes too. Until that point, his Hong Kong-based company, AML Global Ltd, had held his QinetiQ shares. But a notification on 1 August stated that he had transferred them to Klear Kite LLC, a US company based in Delaware, a jurisdiction that the Inland Revenue categorises as “opaque”. Companies based there cannot be subject to scrutiny from UK regulators.
Britain had a new fighter jet. Harborne had 10% of the company developing its electronic warfare systems. And then another invite arrived ...
The second Chequers visit: a ‘Political/Personal BBQ’
On 21 August, just over a fortnight before he would step down as prime minister and a month after the Farnborough Air Show, Johnson would once again host Christopher Harborne at Chequers. This time the occasion was a barbecue. Not any old barbecue. It was marked on his schedule as a “Political/Personal BBQ”.
Johnson was under pressure. What remained of his reputation was at risk. But his guests still had to be entertained
In fact, the document shows that Johnson’s schedule began in the early hours: at 0.01am with a private call with his defence secretary, Wallace. And his morning was taken up with calls with his lawyers – including Lord Pannick KC, one of Britain’s most prominent barristers – preparing for his response to the privileges committee on whether he had misled parliament during Partygate.
Johnson was under pressure. His scandals had finally started to collapse in on themselves. What remained of his reputation was at risk. But his guests still had to be entertained.
They included those who might give money to the party, those who had, and those who had received a peerage for their efforts – the time-honoured quid pro quo of British political life. Among the crowd was Lord (Stuart) Marks, Lord (Peter) Cruddas, Lord (Zac) Goldsmith, Lady Annabel Goldsmith and Sir Nicholas Coleridge.
At 14.34, the schedule notes, Johnson excused himself to take a call with the “Quad” – himself, President Biden, President Macron and Chancellor Scholz of Germany. A Cabinet Office press release the next day reported that “they underlined their steadfast commitment to supporting Ukraine in the face of Russia’s invasion”. By the time Johnson emerged, the guests had either left or were on their way out.
Only one remained: Harborne. The Cabinet Office’s log notes that Harborne stayed for another hour and a half, departing by taxi, after being “taken ill at BBQ”.
Two and a half weeks later, Boris Johnson’s time in Downing Street – and his weekends in Chequers – would be over.
But Johnson’s relationship with Christopher Harborne was just beginning. Harborne’s very last donation to the Conservatives of £500,000 landed four weeks after Johnson stepped down as PM.
His next political donation would be a £1m personal gift to Johnson and, two years later, £5m to Nigel Farage.
The question remains: why?
In our ongoing series the Harborne Receipts, the Nerve is exploring the nature and implications of financial links between Christopher Harborne, Boris Johnson and Nigel Farage:
Tracking the pattern of Harborne’s donations (£30m+ and counting) with pro-crypto announcements by Farage, Johnson and their parties