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Nigel Farage was involved in a heated interaction with a Sky News reporter, as he accused the broadcaster of ‘harassing’ his family.
A journalist questioned the Reform MP about claims made around financial support he received from convicted criminal George Cottrell.
On his way back from the Independence Day celebrations in Washington, he approached the Sky cameras and said: ‘You tell your bosses, you harass my family anymore.
‘I’ll take these serious consequences. That’s what your organisation has done this morning. Go away.’
After being asked again whether it was a ‘mistake to accept the gifts’, Farage replied: ‘Do you not hear me? You have broken all the rules, Levenson, and everything else.’
The publication has since said that it has not contacted anyone from Farage’s family about the story.
This comes as calls continue to be made for a parliamentary standards inquiry into the contributions that multi-millionaire Reform backer Cottrell made to Farage.
Farage accepted staff, security and accommodation from the convicted fraudster in the year before he clinched the Clacton seat and took his place in the Commons as an MP.
Cottrell, 32, who admitted a count of wire fraud in the US in 2017, was previously a volunteer for UKIP in the Brexit referendum campaign.
The Sunday Times reports that Cottrell recruited and paid three staff members to work on Farage’s social media before the 2024 general election.
The publication also claimed that Farage used a property rented by Cottrell near Buckingham Palace.
Reform denies that any funding rules have been broken.
On Sunday, the party’s treasury spokesman, Robert Jenrick, told the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg that the support did not need to be registered since it was provided in a ‘purely personal capacity’ prior to Farage’s election.
He said: ‘You’re allowed to accept a gift, support, whatever you want to call it, from a personal friend before you’re a member of parliament, if it’s in a purely personal capacity.
‘When you’re a news presenter and you’ve just been on the jungle [in the TV programme I’m a Celebrity … Get Me Out of Here!], you do create social media content that’s nothing to do with his job as a member of parliament, because he wasn’t a member of parliament.’
This came before Farage claimed yesterday that he is the victim of an ‘establishment hit job’.
The Reform leader said in a statement: ‘I have done no wrongdoing, followed the rules and I am now considering legal action against The Sunday Times.
‘It’s now clear the establishment will stop at nothing to hurt Reform – we want to smash their cosy consensus.’