Nigel Farage has dismissed suggestions Reform UK had previously taken disguised foreign donations as “loose pub talk” that “simply were not true” as he sought to move on from allegations about the party’s finances.
Reform’s head of policy James Orr and long-serving Farage aide Dan Jukes have stepped down and the party has launched an investigation following allegations they breached political donation rules by having polling paid for by an overseas company.
But Mr Farage has insisted “nothing illegal” had happened, while Mr Jukes has denied any wrongdoing and said it was a case of entrapment.
Speaking to reporters at the Reform party conference in Birmingham on Friday, Mr Farage again denied that his party had broken any laws or taken any illegal money.
But he acknowledged that comments by Mr Orr and Mr Jukes were “injudicious at best”.
Asked about footage recorded by undercover reporters in which Reform officials appeared to say they had previously disguised donations from foreign sources, Mr Farage said the claims were “loose pub talk, including a couple of boasts that simply were not true”.
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