One of Nigel Farage’s top allies has admitted the Reform UK leader “cannot hide away” from growing questions over the multi-million pound gift he received from a crypto-billionaire.
The Reform UK leader has faced scrutiny in recent weeks over the £5 million donation from Christopher Harborne, made weeks before Mr Farage stood in the 2024 general election.
Last week, he insisted “no one cares” about the money, and when asked by BBC Breakfast how much of the gift he had spent, he said: “It’s none of your business.”
Tim Montgomerie, a key Reform UK supporter who defected to the party in 2024 after 33 years as a Conservative, warned that Mr Farage “has to find better answers” to questions about the donation.
Responding to the clip, Mr Montgomerie said on Wednesday: “Well, that wasn’t Nigel Farage’s best interview performance, let’s put it that way. He cannot hide away from this issue.
“People do not normally get a £5million pound gift…we get a box of chocolates, we get a bottle of champagne.”
The founder of ConservativeHome said that it is “entirely legitimate” for Mr Farage to have security concerns, but added: “I think he may not particularly like the fact that these questions are coming his way, but they are going to keep coming his way, because people are puzzled by it.
“I think he has to find better answers to these questions so far, and he will do, and because the parliamentary process is now underway, and he will have to be open.”
Mr Montgomerie’s defection to Reform UK was publicly celebrated by the party, who shared a photo of him with Mr Farage and then-party chairman Zia Yusuf in 2024.
The former Boris Johnson adviser has since gone on to become the honorary president of the party’s Christian Fellowship.
Labour chair Anna Turley said Mr Montgomerie’s comments showed senior Reform backers “are waking up and smelling the coffee”.
“They know Nigel Farage can’t defend his £5 million scandal and he’s exposed himself as being unable to face the basic scrutiny the public expects of all political leaders,” she said.
“This scandal isn’t going away – it’s engulfing Reform and proving to the British public that he’s just in it for himself. It’s time Farage came clean and set out all the facts. If he doesn’t it surely won’t be long before more Reform figures start raising the alarm.”
Mr Harborne’s donations to Mr Farage and Reform UK have been a subject of particular controversy for the party, after he gifted it £9m last August – the biggest single donation in history to a political party from a living person – and a further £3m this year.
Mr Farage’s recent disclosure of the £5m “gift” from the crypto entrepreneur has prompted an investigation by Westminster’s standards watchdog into whether Mr Farage broke Commons rules by not declaring it after his election in 2024.
If the probe finds he committed a serious breach of parliament’s rules, he could be suspended from the Commons. A suspension of 10 days or more could trigger a recall petition, which could potentially see him forced to fight his Clacton seat again.
Mr Montgomerie’s intervention comes just days after Reform UK’s former chair suggested Mr Farage should take “a break” from politics.
Dr David Bull, who was in post until May this year, said he was speaking as a “friend and a colleague”, days after Mr Farage was tackled about the donation in his first major interview in weeks.
Mr Farage has previously insisted the £5m gift was given to pay for private security for the rest of his life, but also later claimed it was a “reward for campaigning for Brexit for 27 years”.
Asked if he had given an interview about the possibility of becoming an MP before accepting the gift, Mr Farage said: “Yeah. And after that I said, after that I said, ‘I will not stand in this election’. And I was pretty clear when a snap election was called that I wasn’t going to do it. I did change my mind subsequently.”
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