Two of Nigel Farage’s senior aides have been forced to step down after an undercover team from the investigative group Verbatim filmed them arranging for a US company to pay for opinion polls commissioned by Reform. Nigel Farage was also recorded in some of the footage, thanking the would-be donors. The team from Verbatim say they were in conversations with Reform for a year before eventually meeting with Farage.
In an interview with Farage, Laura Kuenssberg asked whether he knew that it was illegal for foreign firms to donate to political parties. Farage said, ‘of course I know that’ and claimed that he was told the money was going through a ‘family office based in the UK’. He told Kuenssberg that he’s not a ‘compliance officer’, and he wasn’t ‘listening’ in the meeting. Farage said he knows electoral law ‘better than anybody’, and suggested that aides James Orr and Dan Jukes had no experience with fundraising and should not have been involved. The Reform leader added that nobody should be able to have meetings with himself if they have not been ‘vetted properly’.
Nigel Farage: ‘For the first time in my political career, I haven’t got my family’s support’
Nigel Farage claimed that this latest sting was an example of the disproportionate targeting of himself and Reform by an ‘establishment ecosystem’ that wants to stop the ‘new kids on the block’. Laura Kuenssberg gave examples of times other party leaders had been investigated, and suggested it was just part of the scrutiny that comes with seeking to become the prime minister.
Farage claimed Kuenssberg had ‘no idea’ about what he had dealt with over ten years, and said he had been very angry over the summer about ‘monstrous’ things that have been done to his family. Farage admitted that his family have been ‘begging’ him to quit politics. Kuenssberg asked if he had considered it and Farage said no, but ‘it’s not easy’.
Robert Jenrick defends Zia Yusuf over X post criticised as ‘plain racism’
Keir Starmer has announced he is standing down as the MP for Holborn and St Pancras, triggering a by-election. Sagal Abdi-Wali, the current leader of Camden council, has been tipped as a front-runner to take over from Starmer. In response, Reform’s Zia Yusuf wrote on X: ‘The front runner being foisted on the people of Holborn… was born in Somalia. Do you understand what’s happening?’
On Sky News, Business Secretary Jonathan Reynolds described Yusuf’s post as ‘plain racism’. Sky News’ Jon Sopel also spoke to Reform’s treasury spokesperson Robert Jenrick about the post, who denied that it was racist. Jenrick claimed that many people who sit in the House of Commons do not ‘put the interests of our country first’. Sopel noted that Abdi-Wali has been a trustee of charities, a school governor and worked for Camden council. Jenrick said that if people who were not born in the UK stand for parliament it is ‘legitimate’ to ask where their loyalties are.
Jonathan Reynolds: [It’s not] about going back to the 70s’
Since Andy Burnham became prime minister he has repeatedly spoken about the UK taking a wrong turn in the 1980s under Margaret Thatcher. Laura Kuenssberg asked Business Secretary Jonathan Reynolds if this message is just about nationalisation. Reynolds said it doesn’t necessarily refer to nationalisation, although there have been cases where that has been ‘the only viable option’. Reynolds referred to the £2 bus fare cap as an example of a popular policy where state control of pricing is delivered in partnership with the private sector.
He said Conservatives are wrong to think that Burnham is focusing on the past. He claimed Labour are trying to address the ‘sense that people have, that they’ve lost power’, and also argued that more public control could help fix the issues with regulation that make projects more expensive in the UK.
Andrew Griffith: ‘There’s only one person responsible for the Liz Truss budget: Liz Truss’
On GB News, Camilla Tominey interviewed Andrew Griffith, who has become the new shadow chancellor of the Exchequer as part of Kemi Badenoch’s reshuffle. Griffith has emphasised his experience in business and commitment to fiscal responsibility. Tominey noted that Griffith was a treasury minister when Liz Truss announced her disastrous budget. Griffith claimed that as a junior minister he played no part in that budget.
He said that he has produced ‘proper plans, fully costed’ to raise the UK’s defence budget to 3 per cent of GDP within two days of his appointment, in contrast to Chancellor John Healey, who has been ‘kicking the can down the road’. Tominey pointed out that Griffith had praised Truss’ budget at the time. Griffith said that budget ‘wasn’t all bad’, but it was fatally flawed because the numbers did not add up. He claimed Labour are in a similar position, paying £100 billion a year on borrowing costs, which is ‘no way to run an economy’.
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