United Kingdom

Reform UK Conference: Farage tries to defend himself following the funding scandal

Revelations from an undercover investigation reveal attempts to circumvent British electoral law, whilst the party is losing support and facing internal resignations

by Nicol Degli Innocenti

4 September 2026aggiornato alle 19.00 del 4 settembre

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Il leader di Reform UK Nigel Farage. EPA/TOLGA AKMEN EPA

3' min read

Translated by AI

Versione italiana

3' min read

Translated by AI

Versione italiana

LONDON – The highlight of the Reform UK conference was marred by revelations about further suspicious funding to the party. Even the presence of Jordan Bardella, the leader of Rassemblement National, the French far-right party, failed to have the desired effect. Bardella and Farage signed an anti-immigration pact and pledged to work together when their respective parties are in government.

Bardella dismissed the scandal as ‘smoke and mirrors’, but the allegations of careless and possibly unlawful management of the party’s finances have created very real problems for Farage. In his eagerly awaited speech – which was delayed by an hour due to a security alert and introduced by fireworks – the Reform leader denounced a “coordinated campaign of attacks by the establishment and the two-party system”.

The video on Channel 4

The scandal broke when Channel 4 broadcast a video last night, the result of a year-long undercover investigation, showing two of Farage’s closest aides plotting to accept a donation of £500,000 whilst circumventing British electoral law, which prohibits parties from accepting funds from foreign individuals who do not have the right to vote in Britain.

A journalist from Verbatim Investigations posed as the British-born son of an American billionaire who wanted to support the party and, over the course of several months, managed to gain the trust of the small circle of people close to Farage and paid for an opinion poll that received widespread coverage in the British media. The Channel 4 video, filmed in secret, shows Dan Jukes, the leader’s right-hand man, and James Orr, the party’s policy director, giving the journalist detailed instructions on how to channel funds to Reform in order to circumvent the law.

Staff resignations

Both Jukes and Orr resigned this morning, both maintaining that they had done nothing illegal. The party, whilst denouncing the footage as ‘a trap’, said it had launched an internal investigation and would not comment on the matter until it had been concluded. Reform has also accused ‘environmental activists’ of orchestrating the scandal, given that the journalist in question is an environmentalist. The police are examining the footage to decide whether to launch a formal investigation.

In a video, the journalist can be seen with an actor playing the part of his father – a supposed billionaire – sitting at the table having lunch with Farage and other colleagues, and it is clear from the conversation that the party leader is aware of the donation. “I’ll be the official donor; my father will send the money to me and I’ll transfer it,” the journalist tells Farage, who replies, “Thank you.”

Farage’s defence: we haven’t taken ‘a single pound’

Farage admitted that he was “not happy” with the footage and said that the staff members involved had “given the wrong impression”, made ‘imprudent’ comments and acted without authorisation, but he insisted that Reform had never taken ‘a single pound’ of illicit funding, had never done anything illegal, and that the £500,000 donation had never materialised. It was a “trap” set by a “foreign-funded group of extremist activists who had targeted Reform”, the party leader stated in his speech.

Despite the combative tone, the scandal could not have come at a worse time for Farage: not only because it casts a shadow over the party conference and its much-anticipated relaunch as a party aspiring to win the next general election, but also because the Verbatim revelations appear to confirm a long series of revelations regarding suspicious funding of the party.

The survey

Farage is at the centre of a parliamentary inquiry because he failed to declare a donation of 5 million pounds made to him personally by Christopher Harborne, a billionaire who made his fortune in cryptocurrencies and who lives in tax exile in Thailand. Farage could not deny the story but insisted it was a “gift” from a friend to hire bodyguards. The Metropolitan Police are also investigating suspicious funding received by Reform from George Cottrell, a wealthy wheeler-dealer who was previously jailed in the US for fraud and who, according to the prosecution, allegedly used his mother to appear as the donor whilst the money actually came from his son – a scheme identical to the one Jukes advised the undercover journalist to use.

Owing to the revelations about its funding, as well as Farage’s irritated reaction and the lack of explanations or transparency, Reform – which had been leading the opinion polls for over a year – has now slipped to second place behind Labour and, in one poll, is even in third place, having been overtaken by the Conservatives as well.

In May, it had triumphed in the local elections in England, whilst it has recently lost three by-elections in a row, losing to the Greens in Gorton and Denton and to Labour in Makerfield and Manchester.