Farage expects more investigations as he prepares to close Reform conferenceThe party leader told ITV he was certain Reform had accepted no illicit donations.Nigel Farage said his family had urged him to quit politics over the summer (Will Colebourne/PA)PA WireChristopher McKeon2 minutes ago
Nigel Farage said he expected to face more investigations after the Reform UK conference was overshadowed by a row about party finances.
Speaking on the final day of the Reform conference in Birmingham, Mr Farage again insisted his party had broken no laws after a report by Channel 4 News 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.
Mr Farage told ITV he was certain Reform had accepted no illicit donations and dismissed claims by one of his long-term aides, Dan Jukes, that the party had previously concealed the origin of some donations as “loose pub talk”.
The Reform leader, who is already facing scrutiny over his failure to declare a £5 million gift from a party donor, said investigations “will go on”.
He said: “You come back and see me in six months, there’ll be five more investigations. It won’t end.”
Blaming the establishment for the scrutiny, he added: “They are not going to give us a free ride. They will do anything they can. I expect many more investigations over the course of the next few months, I have no doubt about it.”
But speaking to GB News, he acknowledged that there would be “some people in the middle out there who aren’t quite sure (about Reform), that would be worried by some of these allegations”.
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.
The footage was part of an investigation by undercover group Verbatim, who posed as an American donor and his son who had paid for polling allegedly commissioned by Reform and were seeking to channel money to Reform.
The Liberal Democrats have also asked Parliament’s standards watchdog to investigate the claims.
Mr Jukes, who denies any wrongdoing, and James Orr, the party’s head of policy, have stood down pending an internal investigation of their appearance in the footage.
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On Friday, Reform deputy leader Richard Tice would not say whether the pair could return, telling the BBC it would depend on the outcome of an internal investigation.
Mr Farage is closing the party’s conference on Saturday (Will Colebourne/PA)PA Wire
But on Saturday, Mr Jenrick told Times Radio they had been “permanently suspended from their roles”.
Mr Farage has said Mr Jukes and Mr Orr were “injudicious at best”, while denying any wrongdoing and saying he was told that any arrangements were “above board”.
Speaking to the BBC on Saturday, he claimed to “know donation law better than anybody” and said the two men “should have done basic checks” before bringing potential donors to meet him.
He said he “frankly wasn’t even listening” during a meeting with the undercover reporters in Clacton, adding: “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 come from all over the world into a family office based in London.”
The latest row continues a difficult period for Mr Farage, whose poll ratings have fallen amid scrutiny of Reform’s finances and a Clacton by-election that was boycotted by other parties.
In his ITV interview, Mr Farage insisted he had not thought about quitting as party leader, but admitted members of his family had said he should “walk away”.
He said: “I have had, I’ll be honest, you know when your own family start to turn on you because of what you do, some very thoughtful moments. Very, very thoughtful moments.”
Asked whether the party’s home affairs spokesman Zia Yusuf could replace him, Mr Farage said: “If there’s thousands of people out there would prefer Zia or someone else to me, do you know what? I’d recognise that.”
Nigel Farage set out his plan for the first 100 days of a Reform UK government (Will Colebourne/PA)PA Wire
Mr Farage closed the three-day event on Saturday afternoon, at which senior party figures have set out their plans for a future Reform government.
In his final address to the conference, he told delegates that “sometimes we will get things wrong and get a bit of a kicking for it” but insisted the party would “immediately pick ourselves up, dust ourselves down and start all over again”.
On Saturday, economic spokesman Robert Jenrick promised to raise the income tax personal allowance to £15,000 within 100 days of taking office, delivering a tax cut for 40 million workers.
The threshold has been set at £12,570 since 2021 and is due to remain there until 2031.
Reform said the plan would save the average taxpayer £500 a year and take 2.9 million people out of income tax altogether, at a cost of £17.7 billion in its first year, rising to £21 billion five years later.
Education spokeswoman Suella Braverman vowed to cut funding for “Mickey Mouse degrees” and force schools to fly the Union flag and sing the national anthem “and our great hymns”.
In his own speech, Mr Farage said he would declare a national emergency and make Parliament sit round the clock to deliver on his party’s priorities.
Mr Farage’s speech was delayed for an hour by a “security alert” and disrupted by hecklers who were removed by security.
West Midlands Police has asked one of the protesters to come forward after footage showed audience members pulling her hair and grabbing her head.
Asked about the handling of the hecklers, Mr Farage told ITV: “This is just all so one-sided. It is ridiculous. There were people there trying to disrupt our conference. We always have them. We always have them, and we remove them quickly and expeditiously.”
Labour Party chairwoman Bridget Phillipson said: “Farage finishes conference as he started: with desperate excuses and pathetic deflection tactics to try to distract from his and his party’s shady finances.
“The sleaze and scandals engulfing Reform aren’t going away. Farage needs to wake up, take responsibility and realise the buck stops with him.”
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