{"id":324111,"date":"2025-12-19T05:53:17","date_gmt":"2025-12-19T05:53:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/324111\/"},"modified":"2025-12-19T05:53:17","modified_gmt":"2025-12-19T05:53:17","slug":"nigel-farage-avoids-police-investigation-into-election-spending-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/324111\/","title":{"rendered":"Nigel Farage avoids police investigation into election spending"},"content":{"rendered":"

Nigel Farage will not be investigated over claims Reform UK overspent on his campaign at the 2024 general election.<\/p>\n

Essex Police said it could not investigate the Clacton MP because more than a year had passed since the alleged offence.<\/p>\n

It followed a former member of Farage’s campaign team claiming Reform spent more than the \u00a320,660 spending limit<\/a> set by law.<\/p>\n

A police spokeswoman said: “Any prosecution for such an offence must commence within one year.”<\/p>\n

She said an “allegation around misreported expenditure by a political candidate” in July 2024 was made on 5 December.<\/p>\n

“It has been concluded that this report falls outside of the stated statutory time limit, and no investigation can take place,” the spokeswoman added.<\/p>\n

The claims were made by ex-Reform campaigner Richard Everett.<\/p>\n

He alleged the party failed to declare spending on some leaflets, banners, utility bills and the refurbishment of a bar in the Clacton constituency office.<\/p>\n

Documents were passed to the Metropolitan Police, which transferred the case to Essex Police.<\/p>\n

The latter said the one-year time frame for investigating an alleged offence was enshrined in the Representation of the People Act 1983.<\/p>\n

However, Farage could still face an investigation by the Electoral Commission.<\/p>\n

He took over as leader of Reform UK in June 2024, about a month before the general election.<\/p>\n

Farage went on to win the seat of Clacton in Essex<\/a> from the Conservatives with a majority of more than 8,000.<\/p>\n

Reform UK has been contacted for comment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Nigel Farage will not be investigated over claims Reform UK overspent on his campaign at the 2024 general…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":324112,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[59,57,58,50,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-324111","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-kingdom","tag-gb","tag-great-britain","tag-greatbritain","tag-news","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/324111","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=324111"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/324111\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/324112"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=324111"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=324111"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=324111"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}