Would a one-year £100,000 cap on donations from new overseas voters curb foreign influence?

The headline number flatters a messier picture: yes carried the day by 18 points, yet that comfortable-looking 59% conceals a chamber that mostly wasn't sure. Strip out the 25-34s, who backed the cap by four to one, and every other age bracket from 16 to 65-plus split within a few points of even money — hardly the ringing endorsement the topline suggests.

Men drove the result more than women did, backing the cap seven-in-ten strong while women split closer to the middle, a gap wide enough to notice in a debate ostensibly about foreign money rather than gender politics. The oldest voters, who might be expected to worry most about diaspora donors bankrolling insurgent parties, were instead among the coolest on the idea, tying with the 35-44s as the most reluctant cohort.

The vote lands squarely on the fault line opened by Reform's Thailand-and-Hong-Kong-funded rise: a party built partly on returning expatriate money now facing a legislative clampdown that its own younger-leaning base seems readiest to wave through. Whether that reflects trust in the state to police foreign cash, or simply generational indifference to the mechanics of political finance, the split leaves open.

A measure meant to shut a loophole passed by closing ranks only among the youngest professionals in the room.