Two officials from Britain's Reform UK have stepped down amid the latest in a series of funding scandals for the right-wing party. Party officials James Orr and Dan Jukes announced their resignations on Friday, following the broadcast of an investigative television documentary by Channel 4 News. The party, which has seen support slide amid numerous reports of breaches of donation rules, said it would launch a probe into the latest allegations.
The undercover investigation alleged that Reform UK officials breached political donation rules by arranging for polling to be paid for by an overseas company. In the documentary, Jukes is seen suggesting to an undercover reporter how to evade electoral law to make donations from abroad. Sitting at the table, party leader Nigel Farage says all is 'above board' as the reporter tells him he has been in talks with Orr for some time.
The resignation of long-term Farage aide Jukes and Reform's head of policy Orr comes on the eve of the party's annual conference. Farage, who has been dogged by questions over money received personally and by Reform in recent months, insisted on Friday in a radio interview that the party has 'broken no laws'. However, he added, 'entrapped conversations don't look good, and that's why we've launched the party investigation'.
A spokesperson for London's Metropolitan Police said it was 'aware of media reporting ... involving political party donations and an alleged breach of the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000 relating to polling'. The ruling Labour Party and the opposition Liberal Democrats said they had reported Reform to the police following the revelations, which the anti-immigration party initially dismissed as a 'hoax'.
Farage sought to hit back by accusing other political parties of 'selling peerages'. 'In the world of political funding, all sorts of things have been done over decades that are wrong,' he asserted. 'We as a party have done nothing wrong. A couple of our contractors have said things that shouldn't have been said.'
Amid the series of funding scandals to have hit Reform in recent months, the disclosure of an undeclared personal gift of £5 million ($6.7m) to Farage by cryptocurrency billionaire Christopher Harborne has done the most damage so far. Both criminal and parliamentary investigations into Harborne's donations – he has also given Reform more than £25 million ($33.6m) – are continuing. Scrutiny is focused on Tether, Harborne's cryptocurrency, which has been widely linked to drug cartels, fraud, and human trafficking.
Amid the storm, Farage made international headlines by resigning his parliamentary seat to prompt a by-election, in which he cast himself as taking on 'the establishment'. With other major parties dismissing the move as a stunt and refusing to field candidates, the populist leader won comfortably, although the nearly 10,000 votes achieved by his closest rival, 'intergalactic space warrior' Count Binface, illustrated significant opposition.
Source: www.aljazeera.com