Nigel Farage has compared his situation to that of Donald Trump being pursued by investigators for years, saying both of them are \u201coutsiders\u201d up against \u201cthe system\u201d, as he admitted having become tetchy and aggrieved this summer.<\/p>\n
The Reform UK leader has been under huge scrutiny over his finances after failing to declare a \u00a35m gift<\/a> from the Thailand-based donor Christopher Harborne and further financial support from a friend, the convicted fraudster George Cottrell<\/a>, before the last election.<\/p>\n Harborne\u2019s gift is the subject of an inquiry by parliament\u2019s standards commissioner, which resumed last month after Farage won a byelection in Clacton. Farage maintains the gifts were accepted in a personal and non-political capacity.<\/p>\n Speaking in a BBC interview ahead of Reform UK\u2019s conference this week, he was dismissive of the investigation into him, suggesting any sanction imposed by the standards commissioner was unlikely to be fair.<\/p>\n He claimed there was a \u201cwilful attempt, and it\u2019s gone on now for months, to say that everything to do with Reform, that every individual involved with Reform is somehow a crook\u201d \u2013 which he dismissed as \u201cthe establishment in a very coordinated way fighting back\u201d.<\/p>\n Nigel Farage said he had generally \u2018gone through politics with a smile, whatever\u2019s happened\u2019. Photograph: Richard Pelham\/AP<\/p>\n The Reform leader also suggested the investigations into him, which he characterised as \u201cattacks\u201d, were similar to those against Trump. During and after leaving office the first time, Trump railed against the various criminal cases against him, later accusing the Joe Biden administration of trying to destroy him. He recently failed to overturn 34 felony convictions against him for falsifying business records.<\/p>\n Drawing a comparison with the investigations into Trump, Farage said: \u201cVery similar things happened to Trump in America. They went after him for year after year after year \u2026 You know, going back two years, we expected there to be these sort of attacks.<\/p>\n \u201cI can see the similarities because again, he was an outsider, he wasn\u2019t part of the system. So look, we\u2019ve had to weather this for the last few months. I\u2019ve little doubt that the attacks won\u2019t stop, but I am utterly confident \u2026 in terms of the growth, the professionalisation of this organisation, our compliance checks, all of those things, I think we\u2019re in a strong place.\u201d<\/p>\n Farage suggested he was likely to be interviewed by the standards commissioner soon, as he dismissed the criticism of him for failing to register the \u00a35m gift as a sign of a \u201ccomplainants\u2019 society\u201d.<\/p>\n The Reform UK leader was pressed during the interview on whether his tone had been out of character this summer, after some inside the party questioned if he had sounded like too much of a victim. Asked about whether he could have taken a sunnier and more optimistic tone instead of an aggrieved one, Farage claimed his family had been targeted with threats to their security and \u201canother huge bout of debanking\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cHave I been pretty ratty over that and upset over that? I will accept. Hands up. I might not have quite been my normal self over the last few months, but you know when it\u2019s your own family, it\u2019s close to home,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019ve been around for ever in this game. I\u2019m big enough and ugly enough to take the rough and tumble in the game. I\u2019ve generally, you know, gone through politics with a smile, whatever\u2019s happened. But some of those personal things over the last few months have weighed very heavily.\u201d<\/p>\n Nigel Farage appeared to rule out a reconciliation with Restore Britain, led by the former Reform UK MP Rupert Lowe, right. Photograph: Maja Smiejkowska\/PA<\/p>\n During the interview, Farage appeared to reject any suggestion of a reconciliation with Restore Britain, which is run by the former Reform MP Rupert Lowe and is posing a threat to the party\u2019s vote on the hard right.<\/p>\n The Reform leader accused Lowe of having a \u201cvery vindictive motivation\u201d and helping the Conservatives, as well as claiming Restore echoed the language of the 1930s.<\/p>\n \u201cThe problem is some people around [Lowe] are saying things that we\u2019ve not heard in this country since the 1930s, if we are being really honest about it … I think the vote for that is very, very small. I believe, and time will tell, but I believe that the next general election will be a binary choice between the Labour prime minister and Reform. And in that instance, you know, people will use their vote sensibly.\u201d<\/p>\n There had been speculation earlier this summer that Farage could step away from Reform amid scrutiny of his finances and jostling for position among those senior politicians who could succeed him. Reform UK has slipped in some recent polls having led for more than a year, falling behind Labour and even the Conservatives.<\/p>\n Farage told the BBC he would still be leader of the party at the next election. \u201cIt\u2019s my responsibility,\u201d he said. \u201cI will be there. To carry the can whichever way it goes.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Nigel Farage has compared his situation to that of Donald Trump being pursued by investigators for years, saying…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":758393,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[59,57,58,50,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-758392","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\/758392","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=758392"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/758392\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/758393"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=758392"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=758392"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=758392"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}