Farage to close Reform conference again amid donations row
The Reform UK leader is expected to give a closing speech to attendees at his party conference on Saturday.
Nigel Farage is to give the closing address at Reform UK’s conference following the party’s ongoing row about political donations.
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The Reform UK leader, who has said his party has “done nothing wrong.” Farage told the press that he took "no illegal money. In fact, no money was taken at all.”
Farage told LBC’s Nick Ferarri: “The party has broken no laws. The party has taken no dodgy money.”
Reform found itself at the centre of a fresh row about donations on Thursday, when Channel 4 broadcast footage that appeared to show senior Reform figures discussing how to disguise donations from foreign sources.
Mr Farage was already facing scrutiny about Reform donations and over a personal £5 million gift he was given by a wealthy crypto investor.
Read more: Two senior Reform UK officials step down after undercover sting over foreign donations
The footage was part of an investigation by undercover group Verbatim, who posed as an American donor and his son who had paid for polling allegedly commissioned by Reform and were seeking to channel money to the party.
Farage told LBC’s Nick Ferrari that the story is a “clear case of entrapment.”
Accepting donations from a foreign company, including donations in kind such as polling, could constitute a criminal offence, and the party has been reported to the police.
The Liberal Democrats have also asked Parliament’s standards watchdog to investigate the claims.
Two people who appeared in the footage, Dan Jukes, a long-serving Farage aide, and James Orr, the party’s head of policy, have stood down pending an internal investigation.
Over the course of Friday, Mr Farage repeatedly told the press and conference attendees the party had broken no laws and dismissed Mr Jukes’s comments as “loose pub talk” that included “a couple of boasts that simply were not true”.
In a speech delayed by a “security alert” and interrupted four times by hecklers including climate protesters, Mr Farage vowed not to be “distracted” from his agenda by what he called a “highly co-ordinated campaign of attacks”.
Addressing supporters, he said Reform had been “the subject of a highly co-ordinated campaign of attacks” by an “ecosystem” that had been built up around Labour and the Conservatives over the past century.
He said: “They were never going to come out with a tray of gin and tonics, I promise you.
“But I promise you, we will not be distracted by any of this. We are absolutely determined in what we’re doing.”
Mr Farage added: “Reform has broken no law. We take compliance extremely seriously.
“And ask yourself, why is all of this happening? Anyone got a clue why it’s happening? Because they’re scared of us. That’s why it’s happening.”
Other senior Reform figures will also address the conference on Saturday, which has been centred around its plans for the first 100 days of a Reform government.
The party’s Treasury spokesman Robert Jenrick is expected to speak about cutting benefit spending, and taxes for both working people and pensioners.
Education spokeswoman Suella Braverman is expected to announce plans to cut student loans being issued for “Mickey Mouse degrees”, and to lift the cap on medical school places.
Reform UK has been contacted for comment.