{"id":651455,"date":"2026-06-22T01:57:09","date_gmt":"2026-06-22T01:57:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/651455\/"},"modified":"2026-06-22T01:57:09","modified_gmt":"2026-06-22T01:57:09","slug":"badenoch-attacks-farage-over-5m-gift-and-rules-out-tory-reform-pact-kemi-badenoch","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/651455\/","title":{"rendered":"Badenoch attacks Farage over \u00a35m gift and rules out Tory-Reform pact | Kemi Badenoch"},"content":{"rendered":"

Kemi Badenoch has attacked Nigel Farage over the \u00a35m gift<\/a> he received before the general election as she ruled out an electoral pact with Reform UK.<\/p>\n

The Tory leader questioned Farage\u2019s acceptance of the gift from the Thailand-based crypto billionaire Christopher Harborne in the months before he stood to become an MP in 2024.<\/p>\n

Writing in the Mail on Sunday after Reform\u2019s poor showing<\/a> in Thursday\u2019s byelections, she said: \u201cThe results have left the idea of the Conservatives doing a deal with Reform stone-dead.\u201d<\/p>\n

Badenoch appeared to dismiss Farage\u2019s account of the \u00a35m. Since the gift was first revealed by the Guardian in April<\/a>, Farage has changed his story<\/a> about the reasons for receiving it. At first, he said it was to pay for personal security for his lifetime. As he faced questions about this explanation, Farage changed tack, saying he considered it a reward from Harborne for having campaigned for Brexit.<\/p>\n

Badenoch said: \u201cCharacter matters in politics because character is what is tested when things get tough. Do you have the strength to face down your own backbenchers on wasteful welfare spending? Keir Starmer did not. He failed that test.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd what kind of character accepts \u00a35m in cash and says it was merely a gift? Mail on Sunday readers have far too much common sense to believe that. Nobody gets \u00a35m in their pocket for nothing, whatever Nigel Farage<\/a> claims.\u201d<\/p>\n

The gift is under investigation by the parliamentary standards commissioner<\/a>, who will examine whether or not it ought to have been declared.<\/p>\n

In Thursday\u2019s byelections, Andy Burnham won the Makerfield<\/a> seat for Labour with a 9,000-plus majority over Reform\u2019s Robert Kenyon and more than 50% of the vote. That result has paved the way for a Labour leadership challenge<\/a>, with Keir Starmer expected to announce his departure as prime minister on Monday. Meanwhile in Aberdeen South<\/a>, the Scottish Tories defeated the Scottish National party while Reform came a distant third.<\/p>\n

Badenoch said the results showed why she was right to rule out a pact with Reform, who she said \u201cdress like Thatcherites but act like Corbynites\u201d.<\/p>\n

She wrote: \u201cWhen those elections were called, I came under intense pressure to \u2018unite the right\u2019. The argument sounded clever: the Conservative party had never won in Makerfield, so why not do a deal with Nigel Farage and stand down? Reform UK<\/a> could do the same in Aberdeen and everyone would claim victory.<\/p>\n

\u201cThankfully, I know terrible advice when I hear it and the results on Friday proved my point. Had I listened, our emphatic victory in Aberdeen would have been diminished. People would have sneered that we won only because Reform stepped aside. A win \u2018helped\u2019 by Reform would have been no real win at all.\u201d<\/p>\n

She stressed the differences between the Conservatives<\/a> and Reform, writing: \u201cWe are not the same, and voters are not ours to trade like football cards.\u201d<\/p>\n

A spokesperson for Reform told the Guardian: \u201cWe won\u2019t need to ever deal with the Tories. They broke Britain and we won\u2019t give them a chance to do it again. We have now led the national opinion polls for well over a year.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Kemi Badenoch has attacked Nigel Farage over the \u00a35m gift he received before the general election as she…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":651456,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[59,57,58,50,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-651455","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\/651455","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=651455"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/651455\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/651456"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=651455"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=651455"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=651455"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}