'It's gonna carry on running': Angela Rayner says Farage will struggle to shrug off questions over money received from convicted criminal
Farage has denied breaking the rules over payments provided by crypto-gambler and convicted criminal George Cottrell
Nigel Farage will struggle to "shrug off" allegations that he failed to declare "eye-watering" amounts of money provided by a convicted criminal, Angela Rayner has said on LBC.
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Farage is facing scrutiny over claims he received support, including security, social media staff and accommodation, from crypto-gambler and convicted criminal George Cottrell, in the run-up to his appointment as an MP.
Former Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner, who today presents her own LBC show as a guest host, said it was "pretty clear" that the MP for Clacton had become engulfed in a "huge and growing scandal".
The alleged payments come on top of the undeclared £5 million he received from Thai billionaire Christopher Harborne, which is currently the subject of a standards watchdog investigation.
His spokesman has denied the allegations after Liberal Democrat MP, Josh Babarinde, wrote to the parliamentary standards committee demanding an investigation on Sunday.
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Speaking on LBC, Rayner said the amounts of money were "eye-watering" and that the obvious question was: "What are his donors getting in return?"
"I don't think that Nigel can shrug this scandal off and hope that it goes away," she added.
"I think this one's got lots of legs and it's gonna carry on running."
The rules in place at the time stipulated that MPs needed to declare gifts worth more than £300 they had received in the last 12 months, except where the gift “could not be reasonably thought by others”.
Rayner said Farage "seems to have a bit of flexible relationship with the transparency, and that is me being diplomatic and putting it mildly."
Mr Farage, who disputes the claims, said the money was to be used for personal security and did not need to be declared, as it was received before he became an MP.
A spokesman for Farage alleges that the additional support from Cottrell, unearthed in an investigation by The Sunday Times, did not need to be declared for similar reasons.
When he became an MP, Farage registered various other donations from Cottrell, including a £9,253 trip to Belgium in April 2024 and a £15,276 donation from Cottrell for a US domestic flight he provided in December 2024.
No other support from Cottrell - who admitted to one count of wire fraud in the US in 2017 - is listed in the Register of Members' Financial Interests.