The Metropolitan Police has opened a criminal probe into Reform UK, folding evidence from last week’s Channel 4 News sting into an existing inquiry over the party’s funding.
The Metropolitan Police confirmed on Tuesday that Reform UK is now the subject of a criminal investigation over allegations it broke foreign funding law. Detectives said potential offences under the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000 are under scrutiny, and that the new material is being folded into an existing inquiry already being run by the force’s Special Enquiry Team.
The trigger was a Channel 4 News broadcast last Thursday. An undercover reporter, posing as the British son of a wealthy American, recorded senior Reform figures discussing how to get money into the party from abroad. UK electoral law only permits donations from a registered UK voter or a UK-registered company.
In the footage, Dan Jukes, then Nigel Farage’s chief of staff, can be heard suggesting a £500,000 donation from the reporter’s fictional father could simply be recorded in the son’s name. James Orr, Reform’s head of policy, separately proposed that the same donor pay for opinion polling to support a Reform campaign instead of donating outright. Farage was filmed at a lunch in Clacton where the arrangement was discussed with the fake donor. The £500,000 was never actually paid.
Both men left their posts within days. Jukes said he had “stepped back from politics in order to clear my name” while denying any wrongdoing. Orr told Sky News he would cooperate fully with Reform’s internal investigation. Farage dismissed his aide’s remarks as “loose pub talk” and said he had not been paying attention during the Clacton conversation.
This is not a standalone case. The Met is examining it alongside a pre-existing probe into donations from Fiona Cottrell, mother of long-standing Farage ally George Cottrell, and into a separate £1 million she paid in June 2024 to a company controlled by Reform deputy leader Richard Tice, half of which was then passed on to the party.
Reform said it “denies any wrongdoing and will fully cooperate with the investigation” and would not comment further while the case is live. Verbatim Investigations, the outfit behind the Channel 4 sting, said it would cooperate with police.
The political reaction was swift. Labour chair Bridget Phillipson said Farage “needs to wake up and realise the buck stops with him.” Liberal Democrat Cabinet Office spokeswoman Lisa Smart said “the stench of corruption around Reform’s inner circle was repellent” and called on every Reform MP to state whether their campaigns had benefited from foreign money. Green leader Zack Polanski said “Nigel Farage and Lee Anderson hoped they could pin all this on two senior advisers,” adding that Farage himself still had questions to answer over how much he knew.
Reform built its entire pitch on the claim that it answers to the ordinary voter and no one else. The Met now wants to know whose money has actually been paying for that promise…
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