dailynewsnblog
Labour calls on Farage to ‘come clean’ over £5m gift and work with crime agency over money laundering concerns
Good morning. In a surprise announcement, yesterday Nigel Farage, the Reform UK leader, said he would resign from the Commons so that he could fight a byelection in the hope of being re-elected as MP for Clacton. He thought a resounding win would somehow invalidate the parliamentary inquiry into claims that he broke parliamentary rules by not disclosing a £5m donation (and potentially other donations too). But within hours all the main parties had said they would not be contesting the byelection, and it may be that Farage’s only notable opponent is Count Binface.
The Telegraph, a paper that is normally supportive towards Farage (although that seems to be changing a bit – perhaps because new owners have taken control?), sums up the situation well with its splash headline.
If that will be unwelcome at Reform UK HQ, then they will be even less happy about the Guardian’s splash. In her exclusive Anna Isaac says:
The £5m gift to Nigel Farage by a cryptocurrency billionaire was reported to the National Crime Agency by bankers who were concerned it may have been laundered money, the Guardian can reveal.
The disclosure will put further pressure on the Reform UK leader, who is awaiting a decision by the standards commissioner over whether his failure to declare the money breached parliamentary rules.
Farage was given a deadline of 1pm on Tuesday to respond to the Guardian about this article. He gave a video address at 2pm announcing he would force a byelection in his seat of Clacton-on-Sea.
Responding to the Guardian’s story, Anna Turley, the Labour party chair, said:
This is an astonishing and deeply serious allegation. The circumstances surrounding Nigel Farage’s secret £5m ‘gift’ absolutely stink.
Farage is engulfed in a major sleaze scandal and his attempts to distract won’t wash with the public. He’s desperately flailing and can’t get his story straight, and working people will conclude he’s just in it for himself.
The Reform leader must finally come clean. He should publicly commit to cooperating with the National Crime Agency, fess up to the parliamentary watchdog over his finances – and face the consequences.
And this is from Lisa Smart, the Lib Dem Cabinet Office spokesperson.
The wheels are completely coming off the Farage bandwagon. His stunt today is a desperate last ditch attempt from a man who knows the game is up. It seems we may have only scratched the surface on what is to come. We cannot play into this vanity project.
All parties should refuse to stand in this by-election, so we can swiftly get back to letting the parliamentary authorities finish their probe on his increasingly dodgy financial dealings. The people of Clacton, and the whole country, deserve the facts.
There are plenty of other developments in this story, and today I will mostly be focusing on them in the blog.
But there is other news too. Here is the agenda for the day.
9am: Zack Polanski, the Green party leader, speaks at the Local Government Association conference. Other speakers are Suella Braverman, the Reform UK education spokesperson, and James Murray, the health secretary.
Noon: David Lammy, the deputy PM, takes PMQs.
And Keir Starmer is at the Nato summit in Turkey.
If you want to contact me, please post a message below the line when comments are open (between 10am and 3pm), or message me on social media. I can’t read all the messages BTL, but if you put “Andrew” in a message aimed at me, I am more likely to see it because I search for posts containing that word.
If you want to flag something up urgently, it is best to use social media. You can reach me on Bluesky at @andrewsparrowgdn.bsky.social. The Guardian has given up posting from its official accounts on X, but individual Guardian journalists are there, I still have my account, and if you message me there at @AndrewSparrow, I will see it and respond if necessary.
I find it very helpful when readers point out mistakes, even minor typos. No error is too small to correct. And I find your questions very interesting too. I can’t promise to reply to them all, but I will try to reply to as many as I can, either BTL or sometimes in the blog.
Key events
Jeff Smith (Lab) asks Lammy if he welcomes the pledge by Bev Craig, Labour’s candidate in the Greater Manchester mayoral election, to give free bus travel to all 11 to 18-year-olds.
Lammy praises Craig and says Labour MPs will want to support her.
Paul Holmes (Con) asks how Lammy, as a football fan, feels about Keir Starmer being given the red card and replaced with a leftwinger.
Lammy says Holmes should accept the Tories failed in government.
David Lammy starts by saying this week is the anniversary of 7/7. He says his best friend was one of those caught up in the attack.
And he pays tribute to the former MP George Howarth, who has died.
Here is the list of MPs down to ask a question at PMQs.
David Lammy faces James Cleverly at PMQs
David Lammy is taking PMQs on behalf of Keir Starmer, who is at the Nato summit. He is up against James Cleverly, the former foreign secretary who is now shadow housing secretary. He is standing in for Kemi Badenoch.
As James Heale from the Spectator reports, both are possible candidates for London mayor in 2028
James Cleverly is up against David Lammy at DPMQs today. A preview of the next London mayoral race…?
Lucy Powell, the deputy Labour leader and a former leader of the Commons, told a Politco event yesterday that the Commons investigation into claims that Nigel Farage broke rules by not declaring donations, could take at least a year, Dan Bloom reports. Bloom said another Labour figure told him it could take even longer.
The original investigation into Farage was just focused on the £5m donation he received from Christopher Harborne, the cryptocurrency billionaire.
But, in his speech yesterday, Farage seemed to confirm that this inquiry has now been widened to include donation he received from his friend George Cottrell which were not declared. Farage said:
Now, the standards commissioner investigating me over the gift has now reared its head again as a result of a lot of copy in this week’s Sunday Times – incidentally, written by a journalist who publicly says he despises me. And despite the fact that many of the things that were written in that article were wholly inaccurate or indeed irrelevant, yet another standards investigation is under way. Standards are now being used as a political tool.
Daniel Greenberg, the parliamentary commissioner for standards, is also being asked to investigate claims that Farage broke lobbying rules.
In the Commons, today’s proceedings have just started, with Northern Ireland questions. There was some speculation that Reform UK would move the writ for the Clacton byelection today. That would be a job for Lee Anderson, the party’s chief whip. If that was going to happen, it should have happened at the start of business at 11.30am. But it didn’t.
The writ can’t be moved until Nigel Farage has resigned as an MP. That has not happened. The confirmation of that comes in the form of a press release from the Treasury, like this one (when Josh Simons resigned), and we have not had one of those yet.
Reform UK’s Suella Braverman heckled at LGA conference after claiming councils make children ashmed to be British
Suella Braverman, the former Tory home secretary who is now Reform UK’s education spokesperson, has been heckled at the Local Government Association after claiming councils make children ashamed to be British.
These are from my colleague Peter Walker who is there.
Suella Braverman is currently being heckled – and laughed at – at the LGA conference for accusing councils of making children “ashamed to be British”. She is also being applauded by Reform councillors in the room. Some people walking out.
Some calls of “Rubbish!” and “You make me ashamed to be British!” plus a counter-heckle from the Reform section about “soy lattes”. Quite different from the usually genteel world of local govt gatherings.
Braverman ends by calling on local government organisations to “work together”, which is met with a couple of hollow laughs. But she gets a standing ovation from the Reform councillors – of whom there are quite a few.
Ed Davey, the Lib Dem leader, has written an open letter to Rachel Reeves, the chancellor, urging her not to allow Nigel Farage to resign as an MP.
In a normal parliament, an MP who wanted to resign would just resign. But in Britain, where the political class is beholden to tradition to an extent that other nations might find odd, it is not as simple as that and an MP can only resign by accepting an ancient job that no longer exists from the chancellor. Full details are explained here in a Hansard Society podcast/transcript about the Chiltern Hundreds.
In theory the chancellor could block the resignation by not allowing the appointment. But this has not happened since 1842, when Viscount Chelsea was stopped from resigning as an MP. This was because the chancellor at the time thought Chelsea was giving up his seat in return for a bribe from the person who wanted to succeed him.
Count Binface has also received good wishes from a cabinet minister. Dan Jarvis, the defence secretary, issued this statement today about the Clacton byelection.
This is clearly a stunt from Nigel [Farage] trying to get in front of the concerns that have been expressed about him accepting £5m We’ll see what the standards commissioner rules.
My sense is he understands the strength of feeling, which I’ve actually, interestingly, felt bottom up in my constituency. I think he senses that he is in real trouble and has taken action to try and get in front of that.
I don’t think that has played out particularly well for him. I don’t think it’s been well-received. I’ve had some quite interesting feedback from my constituents that this is just a complete circus and a complete waste of time.
Looks like Count Binface will be sort of stepping forward, and good luck to him.
Jarvis is at the Nato summit in Turkey. For more coverage of the summit, and all the debate about defence, European foreign policy, and Greenland, do follow Jakub Krupa’s coverage on his Europe live blog. There is no Count Binface in that story – although it has got Donald Trump.
Badenoch suggests Count Binface could end up as the people’s candidate in Clacton, against establishment Farage
Count Binface could do better than expected. Kemi Badenoch, the Conservative party leader, was on Sky News this morning and, without quite endorsing him, she suggested she would be happy to see him beat Nigel Farage.
Asked who Conservative supporters in Clacton should vote for, given that her party is not putting up a candidate, Badenoch replied:
The people of Clacton, and the Conservatives in particular, are very sensible. They will do what they know to be right. It’s not for me to be getting involved in that.
Let’s see what kind of campaign Count Binface runs and who the establishment really is.
If it’s the people versus the establishment, I think Nigel Farage might be looking like the establishment and Count Binface maybe the people.
The whole thing is a farce.
