Reform UK claims that Nigel Farage was under no obligation to declare the donation because it was a personal gift intended to pay for his security. It was not related to his subsequent work as an MP, the party says.
Although there is an exemption for gifts that are purely personal, the
House of Commons rules say that gifts should be registered if people might reasonably assume there could be a political motive behind them. The relevant section says MPs do not have to register:
Harborne has said the gift was just personal. He
told the Telegraph: “I wasn’t expecting anything in return apart from ensuring [Farage’s] safety.”
But, given that Harborne donated £10m to the Brexit party before the 2019 election, and £12m to Reform UK (the new name for the Brexit party) in 2025, it is not particularly surprising that the parliamentary commissioner for standards, Daniel Greenberg, has decided that this is matter that merits a proper investigation.
In
a story for the Observer at the weekend,
Catherine Neilan quoted experts saying that, if an inquiry finds Farage has broken the rules, the punishment could be quite serious. She said:
In the US Donald Trump faced multiple prosecutions ahead of the 2024 presidential election, and he was
found guilty of falsification of business records in a hush-money case.
But the criminal proceedings had little or no impact on Trump’s popularity because he successfully persuaded his supporters that the investigations were evidence he was being persecuted by the establishment because he was standing up for ordinary people.
It is not hard to imagine Farage trying a similar ploy in a Clacton byelection.
