Nigel Farage signalled he is bracing for a fresh wave of scrutiny after Reform UK’s conference was engulfed by a dispute over the party’s finances.
On the final day of the gathering in Birmingham, Mr Farage again maintained that Reform had not broken the law, responding to a Channel 4 News report that showed senior party figures discussing ways to disguise donations from foreign sources.
Accepting donations from a foreign company — including donations in kind such as polling — could amount to a criminal offence, and the party has been reported to the police.
In an interview with ITV, Mr Farage said he was confident Reform had taken no illicit donations. He also brushed aside claims made by his long-term aide Dan Jukes that the party had previously concealed the source of some donations, describing the remarks as “loose pub talk”.
The Reform leader is already under scrutiny over his failure to declare a £5 million gift from a party donor, and he said further inquiries were inevitable.
He said: “You come back and see me in six months, there’ll be five more investigations. It won’t end.”
Arguing that the establishment was driving the attention, 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.”
Speaking separately to GB News, Mr Farage conceded that “some people in the middle out there who aren’t quite sure (about Reform), that would be worried by some of these allegations”.
James Orr (L) and Dan Jukes stood down from Reform pending an internal investigation
The dispute sparked by the Channel 4 report has dominated Reform’s annual conference, which had been promoted as an opportunity to lay out the party’s programme for its first 100 days in office.
The broadcast included footage from an investigation by the undercover group Verbatim, which posed as an American donor and his son. The pair had paid for polling allegedly commissioned by Reform and were seeking to channel money to the party, according to the report.
The Liberal Democrats have also asked Parliament’s standards watchdog to investigate the allegations.
Mr Jukes, who denies any wrongdoing, and James Orr, Reform’s head of policy, have both stood down while an internal inquiry examines their appearance in the footage.
On Friday, deputy leader Richard Tice declined to say whether either man could return, telling the BBC any decision would hinge on the findings of the internal investigation.
But on Saturday, Mr Jenrick told Times Radio they had been “permanently suspended from their roles”.
The controversy adds to a challenging spell for Mr Farage, with Reform’s poll ratings slipping amid questions about party finances and a Clacton by-election that was boycotted by other parties.
Mr Farage told ITV he had not been considering stepping down as leader, though he said members of his family had urged him to “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.”
When asked whether the party’s home affairs spokesman Zia Yusuf might replace him, Mr Farage replied: “If there’s thousands of people out there would prefer Zia or someone else to me, do you know what? I’d recognise that.”
Mr Farage is due to close the three-day conference on Saturday afternoon, after senior Reform figures used the event to spell out what they say would be the priorities of a future Reform government.
Reform UK economic spokesman Robert Jenrick promised to raise the income tax personal allowance to £15,000
On Saturday, Reform’s economic spokesman Robert Jenrick pledged that within 100 days of taking office the party would lift the income tax personal allowance to £15,000, which he said would cut tax for 40 million workers.
The personal allowance has been fixed at £12,570 since 2021 and is set to stay at that level until 2031.
Reform said the change would save the average taxpayer £500 a year and remove 2.9 million people from paying income tax entirely. The party put the cost at £17.7 billion in the first year, rising to £21 billion five years later.
In his own address, Mr Farage said he would declare a national emergency and keep Parliament sitting around the clock to push through his party’s agenda.
His speech started an hour late because of what was described as a “security alert” and was interrupted by hecklers who were escorted out by security.
West Midlands Police has asked one protester to come forward after video appeared to show audience members pulling her hair and grabbing her head.
Mr Farage, asked by ITV about how the disruption was handled, said: “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.”
