Nigel Farage aides step down after undercover report on Reform UK donations

Two Reform UK officials have stepped down and the party has launched an investigation following allegations they breached political donation rules by having polling paid for by an overseas company.James Orr and Dan Jukes have stepped down from Reform, a party spokesperson said.Rival parties had reported Reform to the police over claims by Channel 4 News that Reform took funding from a US firm for three polls it commissioned earlier this year, costing £32,500 (€37,800).A Reform UK spokesman said: “Reform UK has launched an investigation following the broadcast of a Channel 4 News programme.READ MORE“Both individuals involved have stepped down from their respective positions pending the outcome of the investigation.“The party believes it is important that the investigation is allowed to proceed independently and without prejudice. No further comment will be made while the investigation is ongoing.”It comes as Reform is gathering its members in Birmingham for the party’s annual conference, with Nigel Farage set to deliver his leader’s speech.The purported donors were in fact undercover reporters from investigative group Verbatim posing as a US financier and his UK-based son.Foreign companies are not a permissible source of funding for parties, including for payments for studies and research, and accepting donations from them could constitute a criminal offence.Reform chairman Lee Anderson said there was “no chance” that Orr, the party’s head of policy and Jukes, a close aide to Nigel Farage, would return to the party.He told Sky News: “They’ve stepped down. They was told, you know, they had to step down, they have stepped down, and that’s got to be the right thing to do on the day, the first day of our conference.“Let’s remember, we’ve got 5,000 members coming through the door today to listen to what we’ve got to say about our first 100 days in government and how we’re going to changing the course of this country.“So it’s right to get rid of this distraction straight away. The pair concerned have gone, and the investigation starts today. It’s as simple as that.”Farage is expected to give the first of his two conference speeches on Friday afternoon, in which he will promise to declare a “national emergency” on his first day in government, introducing a flood of legislation and doing “anything and everything” to deliver his party’s policies.The two-day conference in Birmingham is expected to hear from other senior Reform figures setting out their own pledges for their first 100 days in office, as well as an address from Jordan Bardella, leader of the French National Rally.The polling was not attributed to Reform, and was reported in the Telegraph and the Times without those newspapers knowing that it was commissioned by the party and paid for by the US donor. The benefit in kind was also not reported to the UK’s electoral commission.In footage of another meeting, a senior adviser to Farage, Dan Jukes, appeared to suggest to the fake UK-based supporter that his US-based father could make a substantial donation by channelling it through the son.When the possible structure was explained to Farage, footage of a meeting between him and the fake donors shows him saying: “Thank you both.”The investigation will reopen intense scrutiny of Reform’s approach to donations and its finances, which are already the subject of a standards inquiry and police investigation.Reform said it had been “the target of a hoax perpetuated by foreign-funded climate-change activists posing as would-be party donors” and the party denied any wrongdoing.In a Channel 4 News’ investigation, broadcast on Thursday night, footage shows that the fake UK-based supporter also had conversations with Reform UK’s head of policy, James Orr, who talked about commissioning polling that would be paid for by the US-based father.In the film, Orr can be heard saying of the arrangement that Farage “doesn’t know, won’t know” and it was the kind of thing he would “rather not know”. At one point the footage shows him saying it was “totally legit” and with “nothing untowards about it at all”.Farage was subsequently caught on camera in a meeting with the fake US donor in Clacton where he appears to be celebrating the success of the poll, saying it was “amazing” and provided “bang for buck”, adding: “It worked. Boom.”Jukes, a close aide to Farage, was also filmed meeting the fake donor, and at a Reform UK reception where in one conversation he appeared to introduce the undercover operative as “key donor for off-the-book project”.In footage of a meeting with the fake US donor, he is heard describing the polling as “clandestine” and “hugely important”.The polling, conducted by JL Partners, made headlines before the local elections in May. The foreign source of funding and its links to Reform were not publicly disclosed, and the Telegraph said it had now suspended the articles about the polling, while the Times said it was not aware of the relationship with Reform.After Channel 4 News’ broadcast, Bridget Phillipson, the Labour party chair, said the “scandal goes right to the top of Reform UK”. She added: “Nigel Farage needs to urgently prove today that his top team haven’t broken the law and secretly plotted to undermine our democracy.”Ed Davey, the leader of the Liberal Democrats, called on the police and the Electoral Commission to investigate.The investigation is likely to create a serious problem for Farage as he attempts to turn the page on Reform’s summer of funding scandals, with his party conference speech scheduled for Friday. In the speech, he will boast of record donations compared with the other parties, including £4 mllion (€4.6 million) from a crypto billionaire pardoned by Donald Trump in the last quarter.However, it remains reliant on a handful of mega-donors who have been based abroad and could be caught by the government’s new £100,000 (€116,000) annual cap on overseas funders which requires donors to have been a UK resident for 12 months.The biggest donation in the last few months was the £4 million from Ben Delo, a crypto entrepreneur who has been based in Hong Kong in recent years but in April said he was moving back to the UK.Delo, who was convicted in the US in 2022 for failing to implement adequate anti-money-laundering controls in his cryptocurrency business, before being pardoned by Trump, has previously given Reform £4m.Party sources said it was “very confident” that none of Delo’s latest £4 million would need to be returned due to the cap when the legislation is passed. – Guardian/PA