Farage’s dodgy dealings are finally pushing him to brink

David Aaronovitch, The Independent

On 3 June 2024, Nigel Farage announced that his retirement from politics was over, reversing a decision to stay out of the coming election which he had confirmed just a week earlier. One person caught out by Farage’s decision was the Maga YouTuber Steven Crowder, whose interview with Farage had been recorded days earlier during Farage’s period of self-demobilisation, but was only transmitted after his reversal.

On Crowder’s programme Farage had told the vlogger how happy he was with his life as a GB News presenter (estimated to bring in £400k a year), lobbyist, columnist, reality TV star and online monetiser. “There’s no money in politics, no money ... if you’re straight”, he told Crowder, but now, “for the first time in 30 years, right, I’m earning good money. I’m enjoying life”.

So what happened to change his mind, to persuade him to ease the perpetually bewildered-looking Richard Tice from the leadership of Reform and to stand as candidate for one of the poorest, oldest, least educated and most welfare-dependent constituencies in England? It could have been a sudden flash of conscience. How could he keep out of this most consequential election and allow his party to be led to political oblivion by the tedious Tice? Or it could have been a £5m secret personal gift from the Thai-based crypto billionaire, Christopher Harborne, which must certainly be said to have represented “good money”.

No one knew about this astonishing act of personal generosity until April of this year, when someone told The Guardian, who contacted Farage about it, who then pre-empted the story by telling The Telegraph all about it himself. It was entirely a mano-a-mano arrangement from a big supporter who wanted to make sure that his hero wanted for nothing. Incredulous journalists probed. Explanation number one for this huge gift was that Harborne was concerned for Farage’s security and wanted to guarantee his hero a life free from worry. The gift was “personal and unconditional”, a private matter between two chaps and therefore not political and no more anyone’s business than a £50 Waitrose voucher.

And it had been given before Farage was an MP, so he thought that he hadn’t needed to declare it. But there was a gigantic conflict of interest: Harborne has about $18bn (£13.5bn) worth of investment in a crypto firm called Tether, and as an MP Farage had specifically recommended Tether. The suspicion is that Harborne’s gift was supposed to set Farage up to re-enter politics and was behind his change of mind. There being no paperwork and no record of conversations between the loaded donor and the lucky recipient we can’t know for sure.

Then there's the story reported by The Sunday Times that Nigel Farage allegedly received financial benefits from a convicted criminal and crypto gambler in the year before he entered parliament, potentially breaking MPs’ rules by failing to declare them. Long-time aide George Cottrell provided funding for the Reform UK leader’s operation, including staffing, security and housing. Farage denied any rules were broken — or that any money went toward housing — while Reform UK denied that its leader breached the code of conduct.

But what also stands out with the whole Harborne affair is Farage’s belief not only that he could get away with it, but his anger that anyone might think that he shouldn’t. “It’s none of your business,” he repeatedly told interviewers last week, earning looks of incredulity even from friendly commentators.

He can’t. It may lead to a by-election in Clacton that, even if he wins, will damage a Reform party that seems to have passed its peak. Even if it doesn’t, it suggests an attitude towards public service which is unattractively mercenary. And it is a reminder that senior British politicians cannot be insulated against detailed scrutiny and relentless criticism in the way that Farage's hero Donald Trump has been. Trump, of course, would have no problem taking £5m from a crypto donor. He wouldn't even have to have done it secretly. His corruption is overt, and yet his party and its legislators have decided that they cannot oppose it. Here we kick up a fuss if a new PM is gifted a tie. I suspect Farage of having been influenced by Trump’s shamelessness, and believing that its toleration might travel to these shores.

It suggests something else, too. That Farage is a strangely half-hearted would-be prime minister. He is famously a disruptor, talking of the pleasure that there is to be got out of “smashing the system”. But what if you are the system? What if you are the guy that everyone expects to solve the problems and hates when you don’t? Farage’s first big cause (which he rarely speaks about now) was Brexit. When that was won he switched to immigration, which is the one subject on which his party scores. He has never, ever been held to account for anything. And nor does he seem to want to be.

In his excellent 2022 biography of the pre-Clacton Farage, the journalist Michael Crick wrote of his subject that, “rarely has British politics thrown up a leader who seemed so little interested in policy... It's perhaps just as well he was never a minister or MP, but he would have hated the life of dull ministerial meetings, or a detailed legislative scrutiny in parliament.”