Nigel Farage dodges questions on £5m gift from crypto billionaire

Nigel Farage has repeatedly refused to answer questions about a personal gift of £5m he received from the billionaire Christopher Harborne, as the Reform UK leader sought on Friday to focus attention on the party’s election gains.

Farage was clearly irritated when asked on a number of occasions on Friday about the money, which the Guardian revealed he had received shortly before announcing he would stand in the 2024 general election and which was not declared.

“Yeah yeah, well we’ll talk about that any other time that you’d like,” Farage said, when asked as he celebrated Reform’s capture of its first London council, in Havering.

The Electoral Commission is considering whether to investigate the undisclosed gift of £5m from Christopher Harborne. Photograph: George Cracknell Wright/LNP

The Electoral Commission said last week that it was considering whether to investigate the undisclosed £5m gift after the Conservatives urged the watchdog to initiate an investigation. The party has also written to the parliamentary commissioner, citing rules that require MPs to declare any “personal benefit” they have received in the 12 months before taking office, and to do so within a month of being elected.

The gift from Harborne, a Thailand-based crypto billionaire who has become a big donor to Reform, fell within that period. Some personal gifts are exempt from the reporting rules if they “could not reasonably be thought by others to be related to membership of the house or to the member’s parliamentary or political activities”, according to the code of conduct and rules for MPs.

The rules add: “Both the possible motive of the giver and the use to which the gift is to be put should be considered. If there is any doubt, the benefit should be registered.”