Nigel Farage apologises to watchdog over late declaration of 17 payments

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free

Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.

Nigel Farage has apologised to parliament’s standards watchdog after failing to declare payments on time on 17 separate occasions, which the Reform UK leader blamed on his “complicated and complex” outside interests.

The payments, totalling more than £380,000 and coming from his paid work outside parliament from companies including GB News and Direct Bullion, were declared late in the register of members’ interests over the past year.

The parliamentary commissioner for standards, Daniel Greenberg, said Farage had made 17 breaches of parliamentary rules.

He added that Farage had “acknowledged and apologised” for the breaches, and that “the matter is now closed”, though all of the relevant entries to the registrar would now be annotated, “so it is clear that they have been the subject of an inquiry”.

While Farage will not face any further investigation by the commissioner for the breaches, the criticism will be unwelcome for a politician who is trying to position himself as a future prime minister.

Reform, which is leading polls despite having only seven MPs, has been working to professionalise its operations as it tries to capitalise on its political momentum ahead of local elections in May.

Farage said in a letter to the commissioner that he had been “extremely let down by a very senior member of staff” and said he had “put in place enhanced procedures” to ensure payments were registered within the 28-day time limit.

That includes providing staff with weekly statements from his business banking account, rather than monthly, Farage said.

“Unlike most Members, I have a very complicated and complex set of interests, including my work as a TV presenter and as a successful private businessman, most of which were built long before I was elected as a Member of Parliament,” Farage told the commissioner.

“Please let me reassure you, there was no malicious intent to deceive or mislead you or the public in the lateness of these declarations; it was an honest and genuine error.”

He added that the late declarations “fall short of what you expect and indeed what I expect from public figures”.

A Reform spokesman declined to name the staff member who was allegedly responsible for the errors but said they had “been severely reprimanded”.

The payments registered after the 28-day time limit included monthly payments from rightwing news channel GB News, where Farage presents a show, ranging from £26,817 to £51,438.

The largest single payment at issue was from Direct Bullion, a gold marketer that Farage is a brand ambassador for, of £91,200.

There were also smaller payments from Elon Musk’s social media site X, Google, News Pty Ltd — the holding company for News International Australia — and Imperial Independent Media, which describes itself on LinkedIn as “a strategic government relations firm based in the United States”.

While about half of the payments were registered less than 10 days after the deadline, some were more than three months in arrears.

Other payments include £17,173 from Farage’s “Cameo” videos, where the public can pay for personalised messages from the would-be prime minister. He has faced criticism in the past after being duped into providing messages in support of the IRA, the proscribed terrorist group.

This month he faced further embarrassment after being tricked into doing a tribute video for convicted paedophile Ian Watkins, the late Lostprophets singer.