Nigel Farage had what may well have been his worst ever day with the media as he was consistently challenged over the secret £5m gift he received in 2024.
What with all the drama following Andy Burnham’s Makerfield win and Keir Starmer’s resignation, you’d have been forgiven for maybe forgetting about the £5m sum that Farage received from Thailand-based billionaire Christopher Harborne just weeks before he decided to run as an MP in the 2024 general election.
But when Farage did the media rounds on Tuesday morning, it seems almost every broadcaster got the memo about scrutinising him over the gift.
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It started on BBC Breakfast, when Sally Nugent took Farage to task over the sum, and asked him he thought it had affected Reform’s performance in Makerfield.
In a tense exchange, Nugent tried to get to the bottom of two questions: what exactly was the nature of the gift and how much, if any, of the money had Farage spent?
Now, Farage was probably already thinking of the lines he could come out with after this interview about the ‘lefty BBC’, hoping that for the rest of the morning he would be giving an easier time.
But he had another thing coming.
On LBC, Farage was challenged by Nick Ferrari, a man who gets on famously with the Clacton MP…
Then, he was even given a hard time on his home turf of GB News…
And people were left even more stunned when Talk TV’s Julia Hartley Brewer decided to try and get some answers out of Farage about the £5m, spending over five minutes on the subject…
Farage’s issue is this: his story has changed about the £5m.
Initially he said it was given to him so he could fund his personal security. Then he said it was a reward for his Brexit campaigning. Now, he says it was an ‘unconditional gift’ that he could have ‘spent on Ferraris’ if he wanted to.
Farage has argued he did not need to declare the gift because he received it before he was elected as Clacton MP and he claims it was not political.
The Parliamentary Standards Commissioner is investigating whether he broke the rules.