At 7pm on Thursday, two very different conversations about money and politics began at exactly the same time. Channel 4 was broadcasting Going undercover to expose Reform’s secret donations plot, an investigation into alleged attempts by senior Reform figures to circumvent Britain’s political donation laws. Meanwhile, East Anglia Bylines‘ parent organisation, Bylines Network, was opening a webinar called Cleaning up politics: how Britain rebuilds trust. More than 200 people attended during the evening.
Hosted by Mike Galsworthy, the webinar brought together former attorney general Dominic Grieve, political and transparency campaigner Gina Miller, Compass director Neal Lawson, and Professor Christina Pagel, who runs the Trump Action Tracker monitoring threats to US democracy. None of us attending the webinar knew what Channel 4 was broadcasting. Only afterwards did the extraordinary coincidence become apparent.
Two conversations about the same problem
Grieve argued that the Electoral Commission needed “complete independence” and “some real teeth”. On Channel 4, Reform’s head of policy James Orr was describing the same regulator as “completely useless” and “so dumb and ineffective”.
Miller said cleaning up politics meant, among other things, “make money visible”. Channel 4 was reporting on £32,500 of Reform-commissioned polling, paid for by an American company, which it says does not appear in Reform’s declarations to the Electoral Commission.
Pagel warned that Britain needed to think about the impact of “literally millions of dollars pouring in to support far-right parties”. Channel 4’s undercover reporters were posing as a wealthy American businessman and his UK-based son.
And while Bylines Network managing director Ben Dickenson waited for the results of an audience poll, he made what turned out to be a rather well-timed joke: “There’s no money exchanging hands in the background.”
None of us knew quite how pertinent that remark was.
Money nobody could see
Channel 4 News and investigative group Verbatim had spent months undercover. Orr and Dan Jukes, a senior adviser and close aide to Reform leader Nigel Farage, arranged for three polls commissioned by Reform to be conducted by JL Partners. A US company set up and controlled by Verbatim, which Reform figures believed belonged to their supposed American backer, paid JL Partners for the polling. The polls cost £32,500 in total and subsequently generated national newspaper coverage. The Telegraph and The Times say they were not told of Reform’s involvement.
Channel 4 says Verbatim’s US company was not a permissible political donor and that none of the three payments appears in Reform’s declarations to the Electoral Commission, although most of the relevant reporting deadlines have passed. It points to Electoral Commission guidance that donations include payments which meet party costs such as research, and that impermissible donations must be reported and returned within 30 days.
Discussing a similar arrangement, Orr was filmed acknowledging that if it could be seen, “it would technically be a donation-in-kind”, before adding: “The reality is we could easily get away with it.”
Jukes described the polling as valuable because of its political impact and because “they don’t show up anywhere in public records”. He called them “little clandestine projects”.
The British Polling Council is now examining what happened. JL Partners says the investigation exposed weaknesses in its procedures and it is reviewing them.
“It worked. Boom”
The Channel 4 investigation had an East Anglia connection of its own. In late July, the undercover reporters met Farage in his Clacton constituency over oysters and wine. By then all three polls had been published and paid for. The supposed American financier told Farage he had been “thrilled to be able to pick up the tab for the polls that you had commissioned”.
Farage was enthusiastic about the results, describing their impact as “bang for the buck”. When the cost of around £30,000 was mentioned, he replied: “Amazing. Amazing.”
“It worked. Boom.”
The footage does not establish how much Farage knew about the arrangements through which the US company had paid for the polling. Channel 4 asked Reform whether he knew beforehand that a secret financier using an American company was paying, or had learnt about it afterwards. It received no answer to that question.
The undercover reporters also discussed with Farage a proposed £500,000 donation. Channel 4 says Jukes had first suggested the arrangement to the reporter posing as the British son at an earlier meeting in May. In Clacton, the “son” told Farage that he would be the registered donor but his American father would send the money to him.
“Thank you,” Farage replied. “Well, both of you. Thank you.”
The proposed donation was never made.
Reform denies wrongdoing and says it was the victim of a hoax by “foreign-funded, climate change activists”.
Farage had only been sworn back into Parliament as Clacton’s MP two days earlier. An investigation by the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards is already under way into whether he should have declared a £5mn gift from businessman Christopher Harborne. Farage says it was an unconditional personal gift to cover his security costs and did not need to be declared because it was not political. The inquiry had been paused when Farage resigned his seat and resumed following his by-election victory. He has spent this week publicly attacking it.
Changing the rules
Farage had been in the Commons on Wednesday evening as MPs debated the Representation of the People Bill, which includes measures intended to tighten the rules on political donations. Among them are a £100,000 annual cap on donations from overseas electors, a moratorium on cryptocurrency political donations until adequate safeguards are in place, and stronger powers for the Electoral Commission.
MPs also voted on an amendment that would have required the government to establish a Royal Commission to consider a general cap on political donations. Farage voted against it. The amendment was defeated by 427 votes to 85. He later voted against the Bill itself, which passed its third reading by 411 votes to 102. Other attempts to introduce a general cap, including an amendment from Labour MP Stella Creasy, were not put to a vote.
During the webinar, Lawson criticised Prime Minister Andy Burnham for backing away from his earlier support for a general cap after objections from Labour’s trade union supporters. He described it as “buckling at the first hurdle”.
What happens next
The Liberal Democrats reported Reform to both the Metropolitan Police and the Electoral Commission. Labour also said it intended to report the allegations to police, while the Greens called for an investigation.
The Met says it is assessing the matter and information provided to it. At the time of publication, it had not opened an investigation.
There was, however, a curious silence from the Conservatives. Kemi Badenoch had attacked Farage over his £5mn gift only hours before the programme was broadcast, but at the time of publication we could find no public response to the Channel 4 allegations from any Conservative MP.
Orr and Jukes have reportedly stepped down from their Reform roles while the party conducts an internal investigation into the allegations.
Back at the webinar, the results of Dickenson’s informal audience poll were bleak. Around 85% of those responding said they were pessimistic or very pessimistic about the prospects of cleaning up politics and restoring public trust. It was a self-selecting audience, not a representative survey, but the Electoral Commission has found that only 14% of people trust politicians.
The webinar ended without any of us knowing what had been broadcast on Channel 4. Only afterwards did it become clear just how closely the two discussions had overlapped.
As Lawson put it: “Clearly, we’ve got to change … the way our politics is paid for.”
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