Reform UK leader Nigel Farage has described secretly-recorded comments by his senior aides about donations as “injudicious” and “loose pub talk”.
James Orr, the party’s head of policy, and Dan Jukes, a close aide to Farage, have both stepped down and Reform has launched an internal investigation into the allegations.
It comes after Channel 4 News broadcast undercover filming by Verbatim Investigations, in which the two men suggested a way around electoral law to secure foreign party donations for the party, one of which would have totalled £500,000.
Farage said his party had “done nothing wrong” and had taken “no illegal money. In fact no money was taken at all.”
Electoral law sets out that to be a permissible donor to a UK political party you must be a UK registered voter, or a company registered in the UK.
In the Channel 4 report, which aired on Thursday night, a reporter posing as a potential party donor raises a concern to Farage’s aide Dan Jukes that his American father wouldn’t be able to directly give money to the party within the law.
Jukes tells him: “You do realise that you can do it?”
Channel 4 say Jukes was suggesting that the donation could be in the UK-based son’s name, although the money would have come from his American father.
He then claims they have done it several times before, in exchanges bleeped out but which appear to refer to other instances where this mechanism had been used before.
At the press conference, Farage said that Channel 4 had opted to bleep the names, rather than broadcast them was because Jukes’ claims were “simply not true”.
He said those donations “haven’t occurred” and “don’t exist in our accounts”.
Farage said his party took compliance around donations “very seriously”.
Responding to the allegations, Jukes said: “This was entrapment over a prolonged period of nearly a year by foreign-funded climate change activists.
“I totally deny any wrongdoing but have stepped back from politics in order to clear my name.”
Before stepping down from his position Jukes had been seen as Farage’s right hand man.
Reform’s head of policy, James Orr, who also appeared in the film, suggested to the undercover reporter that perhaps his American father could pay for opinion polling to aid Reform’s campaigning.
In all, Channel 4 News claims three polls were commissioned in this way costing £32,500 in total and that the public was not told who commissioned or funded them.
Not disclosing such funding would be illegal and accepting this kind of foreign funding would also be illegal.
Orr told Sky News: “I have agreed to step down from my current role at Reform UK pending the outcome of the party’s internal investigation into the conduct of the programme, with which I will cooperate fully.”
In response to allegations of “entrapment” from Jukes, a spokesperson for Verbatim Investigations told BBC News the investigation was carried out “to the highest journalistic standards”, adding: “As the footage shows, the plots we exposed were proposed by Mr Jukes and Mr Orr, not by our journalists.”
Farage acknowledged Jukes’ comments were “problematic” but added that they were “loose pub talk, including a couple of boasts that simply were not true”.
“And whilst I’m aware that our people were pushed and pushed and pushed into saying these things, the comments were injudicious at best.
“Neither of these members were authorised to act in that way.
“Accordingly, they’ve stepped down pending an investigation, and I emphasise again: Reform has broken no law, and we take compliance around donations very, very seriously.”
During the film, Farage is introduced to the undercover reporter posing as a party donor and an actor posing as his American father.
In the press conference, Farage said he was “annoyed” that he was introduced to the two men adding: “It should not have happened.”
He said his party needed to “do better as we professionalise”.
Labour and the Liberal Democrats have reported the party to the Metropolitan Police.
The police said it would assess the matter and any information provided to it.
In a statement on Friday, the Electoral Commission said: “We are considering all relevant information, in line with our regulatory remit, and we are in touch with the Met Police.”
A Channel 4 News spokesperson said: “We stand by the public interest journalism in this investigation, which has been rigorously verified to ensure accuracy.
“We would encourage people to watch the investigation in full.”
