At a moment when Reform UK had hoped to project momentum and purpose, its annual conference in Birmingham became instead a stage for reckoning — with allegations of illegal foreign donations forcing two senior officials to resign and reopening questions about the party's relationship with transparency and the law. The episode arrives not in isolation but as part of a gathering pattern: a party that rose swiftly on the currents of public disillusionment now finds itself navigating the very institutional scrutiny it once promised to transcend. In democratic life, the rules governing money in pol