Nigel Farage has dismissed secretly-recorded comments at the centre of the Reform UK donations scandal as ‘injudicious’ and ‘loose pub talk’, insisting his party has ‘broken no law’ and taken ‘no illegal money’.
Two senior figures, head of policy James Orr and aide Dan Jukes, have stepped down following Channel 4 News broadcasting undercover footage in which they appeared to suggest ways around electoral law to secure foreign donations for the party. One proposed donation would have totalled £500,000. Reform has launched an internal investigation.
What the undercover footage showed
The Channel 4 report, broadcast on Thursday night, featured a reporter posing as a potential donor who raised the issue of his American father being unable to give money to the party legally. Jukes told him: ‘You do realise that you can do it?’ Channel 4 says Jukes was suggesting the donation could be made in the UK-based son’s name, while the funds originated from the American father. Jukes then claimed, in exchanges that were bleeped out, that such an arrangement had been used several times before.
At a press conference, Farage said Channel 4 had chosen to bleep the names because Jukes’ claims were ‘simply not true’. He said those donations ‘haven’t occurred’ and ‘don’t exist in our accounts’.
Orr, also appearing in the footage, suggested to the undercover reporter that the American father might pay for opinion polling to support Reform’s campaigning. Channel 4 News claims three polls were commissioned in this way, costing £32,500 in total, and that the public was not told who had commissioned or funded them. Not disclosing such funding would be illegal, as would accepting foreign funding of this kind.
In a statement, Orr said he had ‘agreed to step down from my current role at Reform UK pending the outcome of the party’s internal investigation’, adding he would ‘cooperate fully’.
Jukes called the investigation ‘entrapment over a prolonged period of nearly a year by foreign-funded climate change activists’, adding: ‘I totally deny any wrongdoing but have stepped back from politics in order to clear my name.’ A spokesperson for Verbatim Investigations, which carried out the undercover operation, told BBC News the work was conducted ‘to the highest journalistic standards’, saying the plots exposed ‘were proposed by Mr Jukes and Mr Orr, not by our journalists’.
Reform UK donations scandal draws in wider questions
The episode has drawn attention to a broader pattern of scrutiny around Reform UK’s funding. Anadolu Agency reports that Farage received a personal £5 million gift from a donor named as Harborne in early 2024, shortly before he announced his intention to stand in that year’s general election.
Anadolu Agency also reports that in July, it emerged that Farage’s aide George Cottrell and his mother, Fiona Cottrell, had been interviewed under criminal caution by Metropolitan Police detectives over suspected evasion of restrictions involving donations made in May 2024.
Al Jazeera reports that Cottrell, a convicted fraudster, recruited and paid three staff to work on Farage’s social media before the 2024 general election, and has continued to allow Farage to use a five-storey Georgian townhouse he rented near Buckingham Palace.
Farage acknowledged Jukes’ comments were ‘problematic’ but framed them as ‘loose pub talk, including a couple of boasts that simply were not true’. He added: ‘Whilst I’m aware that our people were pushed and pushed and pushed into saying these things, the comments were injudicious at best. Neither of these members were authorised to act in that way.’
Farage also said he was ‘annoyed’ to have been introduced to the undercover reporter and a man posing as the American father during the filming, saying: ‘It should not have happened.’ He added that Reform needed to ‘do better as we professionalise’.
Labour and the Liberal Democrats have both reported the party to the Metropolitan Police. The Met said it would assess the matter and any information provided. The Electoral Commission said in a statement: ‘We are considering all relevant information, in line with our regulatory remit, and we are in touch with the Met Police.’
