Nigel Farage Offers New Excuse Over Reform Funding Dispute

Nigel Farage has said he “wasn’t even listening” at a meeting he attended with an undercover journalist claiming to be an American donating money to Reform UK.

The party leader has insisted no laws have been broken after a Channel 4 News report showed senior Reform figures discussing how to disguise donations from foreign sources.

Accepting donations from a foreign company, including donations in kind such as polling, could constitute a criminal offence, and the party has been reported to the police.

Two of Farage’s closest aides, Dan Jukes and James Orr, have been suspended by the party pending an internal investigation into the row.

Secretly-recorded footage showed Farage and Jukes having lunch during the recent Clacton by-election with the journalist claiming to be the wealthy American, and another man pretending to be his UK-based son.

The “American” is heard discussing how he paid for polling via his son, and Farage is heard thanking them both.

The Reform leader said the polling was “amazing” and provided “bang for buck”, adding: “It worked. Boom.”

When the discussion turned to a larger donation to Reform, one of the undercover journalists explained that the money would be paid by the US-based father to his son in the UK, who would then pass it on to the party.

Such an arrangement would be illegal under electoral law.

Farage is heard saying “it’s all above board” before later adding: “Thank you. Both of you, thank you.”

But speaking to the BBC on the final day of Reform’s conference in Birmingham, Farage insisted he had not been paying attention to what was being discussed at the lunch.

He said: “I am not a compliance officer. I was in the middle of canvassing in the Clacton by-election. I turn up. I frankly wasn’t even listening.

“ I just asked, “Is it all above board?” I was just there to come and say hello.”

Farage added: “I was told there was a global family office based in London, so the money could have come from Singapore. The money could come from all over the world, you know. Income could have came from all over the world into a family office based in London.

“I know electoral law. I know donation law better than anybody. Frankly [Jukes and Orr] have never been involved in fundraising before and they shouldn’t have been involved directly in fundraising. They should have done basic checks and nobody, nobody should be brought to me, unless they’ve been vetted.”

The row over the Channel 4 report has overshadowed Reform’s annual conference, which had been billed as setting out the party’s plans for its first 100 days in office.

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