Nigel Farage had a difficult Tuesday morning. Appearing on BBC Breakfast in the days after Andy Burnham’s Makerfield landslide and Keir Starmer’s resignation, Farage appeared to be hoping the political drama of the past few days had pushed his £5m undisclosed personal gift from crypto billionaire Christopher Harborne off the agenda. The BBC’s Sally Nugent had not got that memo.
The interview
Nugent began by asking Farage whether Reform’s humbling in Makerfield had anything to do with the gift controversy. Farage responded that “no one cares” about the story in the media. Nugent pointed out, calmly, that the Parliamentary Standards Watchdog clearly does – given that it has opened a formal investigation.
Farage protested his innocence and repeated his claim that the money was used to pay for personal security. Nugent then asked the obvious follow-up: how much of the £5m had he actually spent on security so far?
Farage did not answer. Instead he told her it was “none of your business” and attempted to turn the tables by asking what Nugent spent her own salary on. She replied – correctly – that the public interest in an elected MP under a standards investigation was somewhat different from the public interest in a BBC presenter’s spending habits. And that her salary, unlike his £5m, is on the public record.
When asked if he wished he had declared the money when he became an MP, Farage said: “No.”
He then claimed the media was “obsessing” about the gift and that only one person had raised it with him during the Makerfield campaign. He suggested that revealing how much he had spent on security would put him in physical danger. He also accused Nugent of being unable to relate to ordinary people – to which she pointed out that his £5m was rather more difficult for most people to relate to than her publicly declared salary.
Why the questions keep coming
The BBC interview is the latest in a series of uncomfortable exchanges Farage has faced over the gift, which was first reported by the Guardian in April. Since then, his explanations have shifted. He initially said the money was for lifetime personal security. He later said he considered it a reward from Harborne for having campaigned for Brexit. He suggested at one point that Russia had hacked his phone to leak the story – a claim Labour referred to police after he failed to act on a 24-hour ultimatum to provide evidence.
Victoria Derbyshire’s Newsnight takedown of Reform’s Laila Cunningham over the story was widely shared, as was Kemi Badenoch’s Mail on Sunday attack, in which she wrote that “nobody gets £5m in their pocket for nothing, whatever Nigel Farage claims.” The formal Parliamentary Standards investigation remains open.
The wider context around Harborne also continues to attract attention. Farage lobbied the Bank of England governor to drop plans for a digital pound – a policy that would cost Harborne billions – and said publicly he was “prepared to go to prison to stop it.” Between Harborne and fellow crypto billionaire Ben Delo, two donors account for nearly two-thirds of Reform’s total fundraising since July 2024.
The reaction
Online reaction to the interview was broadly positive about Nugent’s persistence. Many viewers praised her for not letting Farage redirect the conversation, with several describing it as a “car crash” for the Reform leader. Others noted the particular effectiveness of her final point – that the difference between her salary and his £5m is that hers is publicly available information, while his spending of an undisclosed personal gift from a billionaire donor is, apparently, nobody’s business.
Farage has held just one press conference in the weeks since the story broke. He has also missed 77 consecutive parliamentary votes and has the lowest voting attendance rate of any Reform MP. Tuesday’s BBC appearance suggested that when he does face questions, the answers are not improving with time.
One response to “Farage squirms as BBC’s Sally Nugent grills him over £5m gift and refuses to say how much he has spent”
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I want to know why he got 5 million pounds, I’d also like to know who bought his house in Clacton and the other million he and Johnson got. If he’s taking money so other people can profit it’s corruption and he should be sat next to Gill in jail!!
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