{"id":678977,"date":"2026-07-07T18:29:11","date_gmt":"2026-07-07T18:29:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/678977\/"},"modified":"2026-07-07T18:29:11","modified_gmt":"2026-07-07T18:29:11","slug":"serious-consequences-farage-attacks-sky-news-after-question-about-george-cottrell-nigel-farage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/678977\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Serious consequences\u2019: Farage attacks Sky News after question about George Cottrell | Nigel Farage"},"content":{"rendered":"

Nigel Farage has said Sky News bosses face \u201cserious consequences\u201d in an outburst triggered by questions over fresh revelations about his finances.<\/p>\n

The Reform UK leader has faced renewed scrutiny after the Sunday Times revealed<\/a> he had received funding from his longtime ally, the convicted fraudster George Cottrell.<\/p>\n

Farage, the MP for Clacton, is also being investigated by the parliamentary standards watchdog<\/a> over a \u00a35m gift received from crypto-billionaire Christopher Harborne in the weeks before announcing he would stand as a candidate in the 2024 general election.<\/p>\n

Farage appeared to lose his temper as he was approached by a Sky News<\/a> journalist who asked him if it had been a mistake not to declare the gifts from Cottrell.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou tell your bosses: you harass my family any more, there will be serious consequences, that\u2019s what your organisation has done this morning, now go away,\u201d he said as he returned from Independence Day celebrations in the US.<\/p>\n

Asked the question again, Farage continued: \u201cDid you not hear me? You have broken all the rules, Leveson and everything else, cut.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Leveson inquiry was a judicial public inquiry into the culture, practices and ethics of the British press after the News International phone-hacking scandal.<\/p>\n

Sky News said it had not contacted anyone from Farage\u2019s family about the story.<\/p>\n

Farage released a statement on Sunday evening in which he said he was the victim of an \u201cestablishment hit job\u201d and said he had followed the rules over the support he had received from Cottrell<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Farage said: \u201cI have done no wrongdoing, followed the rules and I am now considering legal action against the Sunday Times.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"NigelNigel Farage resigns to stand in \u2018people vs establishment\u2019 byelection – The Latest<\/p>\n

On Monday night, Donald Trump appeared to back Farage. In a post on his Truth Social platform, the US president shared a link to an article on the National Pulse website titled: \u201cThey\u2019re running the 2024 anti-Trump playbook on Nigel Farage\u201d.<\/p>\n

Cottrell was jailed for eight months in the US in 2017 after pleading guilty to a charge of wire fraud. He admitted attempting to defraud criminals on the dark web by masquerading as a money launderer. He was arrested as he and Farage travelled back to Britain after a trip to the US.<\/p>\n

Labour and the Liberal Democrats have called for parliament\u2019s standards commissioner, who is already investigating the \u00a35m gift the MP received from Harborne, to examine the support.<\/p>\n

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If found to have breached the rules, Farage could face sanctions, including a Commons suspension that could trigger a recall petition and a byelection in his seat.<\/p>\n

Addressing the controversy on Tuesday, Reform UK\u2019s deputy leader, Richard Tice, claimed voters had shown they were not concerned by Farage\u2019s finances, and added: \u201cNo one\u2019s perfect.\u201d<\/p>\n

He did not refer to the latest row over Cottrell, but said Reform had succeeded in May\u2019s elections after the revelations about the \u00a35m received from Harborne.<\/p>\n

He told the Institute for Government: \u201cThere have been lots of elections recently. The May elections were after Nigel\u2019s gift was announced.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe last two weeks of [council] byelections, we\u2019re winning them by significant percentages. We\u2019ve won most of them. So, ultimately, got to trust the voter and the voters will tell us.\u201d<\/p>\n

He added: \u201cAre we available to scrutiny? Of course. Is everybody perfect? No, no one\u2019s perfect.\u201d<\/p>\n

He also said the country had to change its culture so \u201cworking hard, being successful, making money, employing people \u2026 is a good thing\u201d.<\/p>\n

He said: \u201cIn a sense, we have to celebrate that, because otherwise, you constantly end up dumbing down, and then don\u2019t be surprised if some of the best people don\u2019t go into politics.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Nigel Farage has said Sky News bosses face \u201cserious consequences\u201d in an outburst triggered by questions over fresh…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":678978,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[59,57,58,50,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-678977","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\/678977","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=678977"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/678977\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/678978"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=678977"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=678977"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=678977"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}