Nigel Farage set up a deal with then-Reform leader Richard Tice and friend George Cottrell to stage his comeback long before the 2024 election, it has been reported.
A new investigation from the Sunday Times found that Farage and convicted fraudster Cottrell had presented the deal to the party’s treasurer in mid-May, ahead of the general election in July.
Farage told a podcast last month he ‘wasn’t in politics’ up until June 3 that year, when he sensationally announced he would be returning as leader during the campaign.
That point has been a key plank for his insistence that he did not need to formally declare a £5 million ‘gift’ from billionaire Christopher Harborne to the parliamentary authorities.
MPs are told to declare any gifts, benefits or hospitality for politics-linked activity received up to 12 months before they were elected.
In June, Farage repeatedly refused to tell several interviewers if he had spent the money and what he spent it on if so, telling them: ‘I can spend it on Ferraris if I want.’
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He had previously claimed it was for his security and a reward for decades of campaigning for Brexit.
Last month, the Guardian reported Farage had told top figures in Reform that he would need ‘a million a year’ to make up for lost earnings if he was to stand for Parliament – with terms lasting a maximum of five years between elections.
The newspaper cited sources putting the discussion in March 2024, shortly before Harborne gave him the £5 million in April.
Farage’s office declined to comment on the Guardian article, saying the politician ‘does not feel any answer he gives to you will be reflected accurately’.
The Parliamentary Standards Commissioner was investigating whether the money from Harborne and separate support from Cottrell should have been declared, before Farage resigned last month to run in a by-election.
According to the Sunday Times, the deal reached by Farage, Tice and Cottrell involved the party paying back or writing off loans it had received from Tice’s company.
The future leader and then-leader had entered into the agreement in March and April 2024, the newspaper said.
A Reform spokesman told Metro the deal just involved Farage exploring what he would be taking on in the potential event of him becoming leader, adding he was keeping ‘his options open’.
They said: ‘Nigel simply found out the party liabilities and what loans would have to be repaid if he were to come back. He then decided he wouldn’t before reversing that decision.’
The Reform leader is not currently an MP, and is fighting the by-election in his Clacton constituency which was forced by his resignation last month.
He unexpectedly announced he was stepping down in order to rerun in what he described as a ‘people versus the establishment’ election.
However, the move appeared to quickly backfire when the major parties pulled out, variously calling his move a ‘stunt’ and a ‘vanity project’, and novelty candidate Count Binface was left as his most prominent opponent.
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