LONDON – Reform UK leader Nigel Farage announced Tuesday that he will quit his Parliament seat and seek re-election in an effort to clear his name over financial allegations linked to millions of dollars' worth of donations.
“I have done nothing wrong. I have not broken the law in any way at all. I have not misused public money," Farage, a prominent ally of U.S. President Donald Trump, said in a broadcast statement that did not take questions.
Recommended Videos
Farage faces questions about undeclared gifts, and a probe by Parliament’s standards watchdog, over a 5 million pound ($6.7 million) gift he received from a Thailand-based cryptocurrency billionaire. Opposition lawmakers seek another investigation over donations from George Cottrell, an aristocratic crypto-gambling entrepreneur who served a prison sentence for fraud in the U.S.
The probes could have led to Farage being suspended or expelled from Parliament. He will pre-empt that process by triggering an election for his Clacton seat in eastern England.
“The people of Clacton should be the judges of my actions,” he said. “This will be a people versus the establishment by-election.
“I will fight to win.”
Even if Farage wins, the standards inquiry is likely to resume.
Scrutiny of Farage’s finances had spurred speculation about the future of a politician some considered a favorite to be prime minister after the next national election.
Farage’s anti-immigration party has only eight of the 650 lawmakers in the House of Commons but consistently leads opinion polls over the governing Labour Party and the main opposition Conservatives.
Reform UK was the big winner in local and regional elections in May that led to the ouster of Prime Minister Keir Starmer at the hands of his own Labour Party.
But the party has lost three consecutive special elections that it hoped to win, a possible sign its support may be sagging. The most recent loss was to Labour’s Andy Burnham, who is likely to succeed Starmer as prime minister within weeks.
Losing Farage would be a serious blow to a party whose rise has echoes of Trump’s nationalist, anti-immigration playbook. Farage has capitalized on — critics say stoked — concerns about migrants crossing the English Channel in small boats, which he has called an invasion.
Parliamentary standards commissioner Daniel Greenberg is investigating the 5 million pound donation to Farage from Christopher Harborne, a British businessman based in Thailand. Farage says the money was a personal gift that he used to fund security and came before he was elected to the House of Commons.
U.K. rules state that newly elected lawmakers must declare gifts worth more than 300 pounds ($400) they received in the previous 12 months, except where the gift “could not be reasonably thought by others” to relate to their political activities.