Reform UK says two senior officials have stepped down as the party launched an investigation into claims about funding aired during a Channel 4 News report.
Nigel Farage’s senior aide Dan Jukes and Reform’s head of policy James Orr have both stood down pending the outcome of the internal probe, the party said.
A Reform UK spokesman said: “The party believes it is important that the investigation is allowed to proceed independently and without prejudice.
“No further comment will be made while the investigation is ongoing.”
The row threatens to overshadow Reform’s conference in Birmingham, which has its first full day on Friday.
In the Channel 4 report, which aired on Thursday night, undercover filming showed Dukes suggesting a way to get around electoral law to secure a foreign donation of £500,000 for the party.
The undercover filming was carried out by a group called Verbatim Investigations, which was founded by journalists from the Centre for Climate Reporting. Channel 4 News say they have verified the material they were given and chose to broadcast.
Reform has denied any wrongdoing and said it had “been the target of a hoax perpetuated by foreign funded climate change activists”.
Labour and the Liberal Democrats have reported Reform to the Metropolitan Police over the allegations. The force said on Thursday it would assess the matter and any information provided to it.
Channel 4 broadcast footage from a lunch in Clacton in Essex, with a reporter posing as the UK-based son, and an actor posing as his supposed American father. Opposite them are both Jukes and the Reform UK leader Nigel Farage.
Farage says “it’s all above board” after the son has told him he has been in discussions with both Jukes and Reform’s policy chief, James Orr about it for some time.
“I’ll be the registered donor,” the son says. “But then dad will send the money to me, and then as soon as that’s done and all those conversations are had the money is available.”
“Thank you. Well, both of you. Thank you,” Farage is heard saying.
Electoral law sets out that to be a permissible donor to a UK political party you must be a UK registered voter, or a company registered in the UK.
In this instance, the son would be a permissible donor, his father would not be.
Earlier in Channel 4 News’s film, prior to the suggested half a million pound donation, Channel 4 says Orr suggests to the undercover reporter that perhaps his father could pay for opinion polling to aid Reform’s campaigning.
The poll would cost £18,000 plus VAT – and Orr suggests that perhaps the polling company could send the bill to the undercover reporter.
In all, Channel 4 News says Reform commissioned three polls costing £32,500 in total and that the public was not told who commissioned or funded them.
Not disclosing such funding would be illegal and accepting this kind of foreign funding would also be illegal.
On Friday morning, Reform UK chairman Lee Anderson told Sky News there was “no chance” of Dukes and Orr returning to the party.
This appeared to be contradicted by Reform’s deputy leader Richard Tice, who told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme minutes later that “it’s not actually, in the nicest possible way, for any individual to make that determination” as the investigation continues.
