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Undercover donation sting
Reform UK’s annual conference in Birmingham was overshadowed after a Channel 4 report alleged the party broke electoral law by arranging for a foreign donor to pay for political polling.
“arranging for a U.S. company to pay more than £30,000 for three opinion polls”
The allegations center on senior Reform figures James Orr and Dan Jukes, who stepped down on Friday after an undercover investigation alleged they arranged for a U.S. company to pay more than £30,000 for three opinion polls commissioned by the party.
Reuters said the undercover team from Verbatim posed as wealthy donors from the United States with British connections and spent a year speaking to officials in Reform, culminating in a lunch with Nigel Farage.
In the Channel 4 footage, Farage met the undercover team in Clacton after the three polls had been published and paid for, and he said: "It worked. Boom."
Farage denies, aides exit
Nigel Farage denied wrongdoing and told LBC radio: "The party has broken no laws. The party has not taken any dodgy money or anything like that whatsoever."
Reuters reported that Reform announced an internal investigation and said Orr and Jukes stepped down pending its results, with Orr saying in a video on X that Reform had not been involved in commissioning the poll.
The Guardian reported that Reform initially described the undercover investigation as a "hoax" and dismissed those behind it as activists, but by Friday morning the party had taken action and launched an investigation into Orr and Jukes.
Euronews said the Liberal Democrats’ Cabinet Office spokesperson Lisa Smart described the case as "the acceptance and concealment of a donation from an impermissible donor."
Police, Electoral Commission
The governing Labour Party wrote to the police asking them to investigate possible criminal offences, including an alleged proposal to channel a larger overseas donation through a UK intermediary, while the Electoral Commission said it was considering the information and in touch with the Metropolitan police.
“said there should now be a criminal investigation as "serious criminal offences" may have been committed”
Channel 4 said a leading legal expert, Bob Posner, called for a criminal investigation and said "serious criminal offences" may have been committed, after Channel 4 and Verbatim checked and verified the findings.
Channel 4 also said political party donations include funding that helps a party meet costs and expenses, such as payments for studies and research, and that donations from an impermissible donor legally must be reported to the Electoral Commission within 30 days of each payment being made.
In a separate parliamentary standards context, DW reported that Farage faced a parliamentary watchdog probe over a £5 million donation from crypto billionaire Christopher Harborne in 2024 that he had failed to declare to parliamentary authorities, as Reform’s popularity dipped ahead of the conference.