Nigel Farage was pressed over his judgement and the culture inside Reform UK during a bruising interview with ITV political editor Robert Peston.
The Reform leader insisted he was “100% confident” that his party had never accepted illegal foreign donations, but admitted comments made by two of his closest allies were “injudicious at best”.
Peston questioned why Farage had not challenged supposed donors during an undercover meeting and asked whether Reform had a wider problem with people cutting corners.
The interview followed a Channel 4 News investigation which secretly recorded Reform figures James Orr and Dan Jukes discussing funding arrangements with reporters posing as representatives of a wealthy American businessman.
Both men have since stepped away from their roles while Reform conducts an internal investigation.
‘It’s still a bit of a shambles’
Peston opened the interview by questioning how professionally Reform was being run.
“Nigel Farage, you’ve had five years creating Reform UK. It’s still a bit of a shambles, isn’t it?”
Farage disputed the timeframe, saying he had only been back in charge for two years.
He pointed to Reform’s recent electoral growth and claimed it was building a professional political organisation.
“I’ve recruited top people and I promise you, I am turning this into a professional outfit.
“That doesn’t mean that things won’t go wrong. It doesn’t mean that sometimes people will misbehave, and that’s human nature.”
Peston replied that Farage had been forced to remove two close allies within the previous 24 hours.
“You might call it accident-prone or shambolic, but there are too many investigations.
“You had to sack two of your closest allies only in the last 24 hours. If you want people to trust you to be prime minister, you’ve got to do a lot better.”
Farage defended the organisation of Reform’s Birmingham conference and argued that other political parties would struggle to produce an event of similar scale.
He also claimed complaints were being made against Reform because the party posed a threat to Britain’s established political system.
“We are living in a complainant society. I am reported to a regulatory authority or the police or something like that virtually every single week.”
Peston was unconvinced.
“Your opposite numbers in the other parties aren’t doing that. So it must be something about you and something about the party.”
Farage blamed what he described as a coordinated attempt to damage Reform following its electoral success.
Peston responded:
“This is a cheap conspiracy theory. What’s at issue is whether you’re running the party properly.”
Peston questions Farage’s undercover meeting
The sharpest exchange concerned footage of Farage meeting the undercover reporters.
Peston said Farage was one of the least naive politicians he had encountered and questioned why he had remained at the meeting once the proposed funding arrangement was discussed.
“When I saw the undercover filming of you, in a really friendly way, talking to people who were trying to persuade you it would be okay for illicit American money to be funnelled through some British bloke, I’m just thinking to myself: why didn’t you just tell them to hop off?”
Farage said he had asked whether the proposed arrangement was legal.
“Because I asked them. I asked them and my people, and you see it in the video: ‘Is this all above board? Has this all been checked out?’”
Peston asked why the conversation had not immediately raised alarm bells.
Farage replied that he had been assured by people on both sides that everything was legal and claimed he was joining the process at a late stage.
“I was coming in at the end of the process. I’d never met these people before.
“Then I’m told it’s a global family trust run from London, and a global family trust can get income from all over the world. So I didn’t question it. I didn’t query it.”
No donation from the fictional American businessman was ultimately made to Reform.
Farage challenged over judgement
Peston then turned to Farage’s decision to appoint Orr and Jukes.
Orr was Reform’s head of policy, while Jukes had worked closely with Farage for years.
“You’ve got rid of the two internal architects of all this, James Orr and Dan Jukes. But what does it say about your judgement in picking them in the first place?”
Farage responded by pointing to previous funding controversies involving Labour and the Conservatives.
Peston interrupted to ask whether that meant he believed the conduct shown in the footage was acceptable.
“So what are you saying? That therefore the way they were behaving was okay?”
Farage denied that was his argument.
“No, no, no. I’m not saying that for a moment.”
He later added:
“What happened was injudicious at best. What was said was injudicious at best. It’s subject to an investigation.”
The Reform leader said wrongdoing by other political parties did not excuse the comments made by his own officials, but maintained that Reform was receiving disproportionate scrutiny.
‘Loose pub talk’
The Channel 4 footage allegedly showed Jukes discussing how a large foreign donation could be routed through the supposed American businessman’s UK-based son.
Jukes also appeared to suggest that similar arrangements had previously been used.
Peston asked Farage directly whether he could be certain that Reform had never received money in that way.
“Dan Jukes did say or imply that you had used this illicit route in other cases. Are you 100 per cent confident that never happened?”
Farage answered:
“Yes, I am. And I put that down to loose pub talk.”
Peston pressed him on why Jukes would make such a claim.
“Why would he say that, for God’s sake?”
Farage replied:
“Because he was trying to persuade this bloke to do something. Look, as I say, it was injudicious at best.”
Peston warns of a possible pattern
Peston said the allegations could not simply be treated as an isolated embarrassment.
He referred to the Metropolitan Police investigation into £500,000 in donations made to Reform by Fiona Cottrell, the Channel 4 allegations and the separate parliamentary inquiry into the £5 million personal gift Farage received from cryptocurrency billionaire Christopher Harborne.
“There seems from the outside, and you’ll understand why I’m saying this, to be still, despite the fact you’re saying you’re trying to professionalise this party, a cultural issue in Reform of corners being cut.”
He later added:
“This looks like a pattern. So you need to look at yourself and clean it out.”
Farage predicted that more complaints and investigations would be made against the party.
“You come back and see me in six months. There’ll be five more investigations. It won’t end.”
Peston replied:
“But you can’t just blame outsiders who don’t like you. There must be cultural stuff going wrong.”
Farage rejected the criticism and again accused political opponents of targeting his party.
Farage says family urged him to quit
During another personal section of the interview, Farage admitted that members of his family had urged him to walk away from politics during a difficult summer.
“Most of my family say, ‘Give it up, walk away.’ And the impact on them is horrific.”
He said the pressure had left him considering his position, although he insisted he had never come close to resigning as Reform leader.
“When your own family start to turn on you because of what you do, some very thoughtful moments. Very, very thoughtful moments.”
When Peston asked how close he had come to quitting, Farage answered:
“I didn’t get that close. I didn’t get that close to quitting, but I think that sense of upset and exasperation was there.”
Farage said there was now “no question” that he would lead Reform into the next general election.
The Electoral Commission and Metropolitan Police are assessing the material produced by the undercover investigation. Reform says the party did not accept illegal money and broke no funding rules.
3 responses to “Peston tells Farage Reform ‘looks like a pattern’ in bruising ITV interview”
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Apologies are not enough. A chimera to internal ‘loose talk’ and strategising amongst all. If the leadership was tough enough about such illicit payments, such susceptibility ‘loosely’ would not happen. Trump playbook in action. Viz: “if you get caught, doing anything untoward, it’s nothing to do with me and you’ll have to then go…” We, the public are not stupid. Just frustrated that accountability at the top does not seem into evidence. I wonder why… 🤔🙄🤬
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He is following same pattern as Trump. Prepared to break the rules, and plays the victim when things are revealed. He lied over Brexit, so why would anyone believe him now?
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