Footage appearing to show senior Reform figures discussing how to disguise donations from foreign sources “looks bad” for the party, Nigel Farage has admitted.
The Reform leader is battling to contain fresh scandal allegations after an undercover sting derailed his annual party conference in Birmingham.
In an interview with the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg, he acknowledged that the comments by James Orr and Dan Jukes were “injudicious at best”.
“This looks bad, as does the sale of peerages, as does government contracts for donations. We are not the first people to be involved in a row over donations,” he said.
In an earlier extract from the interview released on Saturday, he also said he “frankly wasn’t listening” during the conversation between his former chief of staff and an undercover journalist which featured in the Channel 4 broadcast and he expected “many more investigations” into Reform over the coming months.
In the footage, Mr Farage was present when it was suggested a US donor give £500,000 to Reform through his UK-based son – a proposal that could have been in breach of electoral law. The political donation was ultimately never made.
Metropolitan Police have confirmed they are considering complaints from Labour and the Lib Dems.
Mr Farage is already facing intense scrutiny about donations Reform has received, as well as £5 million he was given by a wealthy backer.
The party’s Treasury spokesman Robert Jenrick also said on Sunday he had seen legal advice that the party did not break the law but that “lessons would be learnt”.
He told Sky News: “We’re going to investigate exactly what happened. It’s right to have due process. But this is not the way that Reform conducts itself. Like any political party, we seek to abide by the law at all times, and we believe we have in this case. In fact, I’ve reviewed the legal advice from the KC who’s advised the party in the last 48 hours, and it shows that, yeah, we did.”
“But do we want for the best version of ourselves? Yes, absolutely. And no doubt there will be lessons to be learnt from this. But we do have a strong compliance department and in fact we turn away donations all the time from people who are impermissible.”
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 the party.
Accepting donations from a foreign company, including donations in kind such as polling, could constitute a criminal offence.
Join our commenting forum
Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies