Two senior officials from Reform UK, the hard-right party led by Nigel Farage, resigned Friday following an undercover investigation by Channel 4 News. The investigation appeared to show party figures arranging for a US company to pay more than £30,000 for opinion polls and discussing a potential £500,000 foreign donation, both prohibited under UK electoral law.
Policy head James Orr and Farage's longtime aide Dan Jukes stepped down pending an internal probe. Channel 4 said it had verified findings from Verbatim, an investigative group founded by journalists, including covertly filmed footage showing Farage meeting with people posing as US donors.
The Labour party and other rival parties reported Reform to police over the allegations. Farage, 62, is already under parliamentary investigation over a £5 million donation from crypto-billionaire Christopher Harborne in 2024 and has denied wrongdoing.
Speaking to reporters, Farage dismissed the allegations as "loose pub talk" but called comments by Orr and Jukes in the footage "injudicious at best." In his keynote address to the party conference in Birmingham, he described the undercover filming as a "prolonged exercise in entrapment" and said the party "has taken no illegal money."
Reform's focus remains its anti-immigration policies, which include stopping small-boat arrivals on England's southern coast. At the conference, the party announced a memorandum of understanding with France's far-right National Rally to cooperate on immigration should both parties come to power.
