Standards watchdog resumes investigation into Nigel Farage over financial gifts

The suspended parliamentary standards investigation into Nigel Farage over accusations he failed to declare gifts and donations has resumed after the Reform UK leader’s re-election as the MP for Clacton.The twofold investigation by Daniel Greenberg, the parliamentary commissioner for standards, was paused after Farage resigned from his seat and called a byelection in protest at what he said was unfair scrutiny of his finances.Now the investigation had restarted, according to the commissioner’s website, which said previously that the process had been suspended from 8 July, when the MP resigned.Farage said he wanted voters in Clacton to decide if he was fit to be an MP. However, all the main parties declined to stand, leaving him taking on dozens of novelty and fringe candidates, most prominent among them Count Binface.Farage declares victory over Count Binface in Clacton byelection – videoGreenberg is looking into whether Farage should have declared a £5m gift from the Thailand-based businessman Christopher Harborne, given to him before the last election. Farage has always said he was not in politics at the time the gift was made.The inquiry was later widened to look at whether he should have declared support from his friend, the fraudster George Cottrell, who let Farage use one of his London homes and also paid for some social media filming in 2024.If Farage is found to have broken parliamentary rules and is suspended from the Commons for at least 10 sitting days he could face a recall petition, where a byelection is called if at least 10% of local voters demand it.According to one report, Farage called his own byelection after his team advised that leaving parliament would end the investigation. In fact it only pauses such processes, which resume if the person is re-elected.Farage has said the investigation was “being used as a political tool”. One Reform MP, Sarah Pochin, called the process a “kangaroo court”.Labour said on Friday that the resumption of the investigation showed Farage could not outrun questions about his finances, with at least 10 questions still outstanding, including whether Harborne had given money to any other Reform-linked figures.Bridget Phillipson, the Labour chair, said: “He forced a byelection he didn’t need to have. He stood again. He spent most of the summer chasing a bin around Clacton.“And now he’s going to come back to parliament and have to answer some very serious questions, questions he’s been seeking to dodge, distracting and deflecting from the £5m … gift, his connections to a convicted fraudster. You know, the scandal just keeps piling up. And now he’s through that byelection, there’s no hiding place.”A Conservative party spokesperson said the byelection was a “farce started by Nigel Farage to try and dodge scrutiny of his fishy £5m personal donation”.“All Farage can brag about this morning is beating a bloke with a bin on his head. What he should do is answer the serious outstanding questions about why he hid his £5m from the public,” the spokesperson said.However, Farage said the result showed he had “stuck up two fingers to the entire political establishment”.