Account Ability

Anna Gross writes:

Nigel Farage’s claim that he paid for a £1.4mn house with his fee from a reality TV show has been challenged by corporate accounts that appear to show that the income remained on his company’s balance sheet after the property purchase.

Farage bought a £1.4mn house in Surrey on May 10 2024, just weeks after receiving £5mn from crypto billionaire Christopher Harborne, but did not register the gift in his MPs’ register of interests after taking office the following month.

On Thursday, the parliamentary standards commissioner announced he had launched an investigation into the Reform UK leader’s failure to declare the gift, which Farage has said was to pay for his security.

Farage’s spokesperson told the BBC on Friday that he had paid for the Surrey property with his fee for participating in I’m a Celebrity . . . Get Me Out of Here! in late 2023, which was roughly £1.5mn before tax, and that he had not used the money given by Harborne.

The Reform leader told the FT last year that his earnings from the reality show were paid to his personal media company Thorn in the Side Ltd.

Accounts for the company show its cash position increased from £300,000 on May 31 2023 to £1.7mn on May 31 2024, and suggest that no dividend was paid out in the period.

Property records show that Farage, not Thorn in the Side, bought the Surrey home and that there is no mortgage on the property. Nimesh Shah, a tax expert at accountancy firm Blick Rothenberg, reviewed the company accounts for the FT and said that they suggested money from Farage’s reality TV show appearance was not used to purchase the house.

He said Reform’s claim that the house was purchased using money from the reality TV appearance fee “needs to be clarified because the company’s accounts are not consistent with their statement”.

If Farage is found to have breached parliamentary rules by failing to declare a gift, he could be suspended from the House of Commons and a by-election could be triggered in his constituency.

Responding to a question about the source of the funds for Farage’s house purchase, Reform said: “Nigel has multiple sources of income, as you can see from his parliamentary register.”

The apparent inconsistency in Reform’s explanation adds to questions about Farage’s transparency over the purpose of the £5mn gift, which Harborne gave to him about two months before Farage announced that he would stand to be MP for Clacton at the 2024 general election.

Farage has repeatedly said that Harborne gave him the money to pay for his security, saying earlier this month that “Christopher is an ardent supporter who is deeply concerned for my safety.”

But on Thursday he told The Sun that the money was a “reward for campaigning for Brexit for 27 years”.

MPs are obliged to report financial benefits they receive in the 12 months before being elected. Farage was elected in July 2024 and did not record the gift in his parliamentary register of interests.

There is an exemption in the parliamentary rules for strictly personal gifts, “which could not reasonably be thought by others to be related to membership of the House or to the Member’s parliamentary or political activities”.

Harborne, who has lived in Thailand for the past two decades, donated £12mn to Reform last year, making him one of the biggest donors in British political history.

According to Farage’s register of interests, the Reform leader made about £1mn on top of his MP salary in his first year in office, including from his role presenting on GB News, videos for the Cameo platform, speaking engagements and his ambassador role for Gold Bullion.