How many sarcastic air quotes is too many for quoting Nigel Farage’s suggestion that Reform have been ““““““““hoaxed”””””””” by some undercover investigators into appearing to seek to get round electoral law to bag a £500k donation from a foreigner, as well as commissioning off-the-books polling and failing to identify it to newspapers? I don’t feel eight was too many. I could run to nine. Amazing, really, that it’s been as long as a few weeks since Farage had a crash-out and forced a byelection. All any of us wants is for Nigel to once again resign after a staged shitfit and ask a few thousand members of the public to judge him.
For whatever reason, though, the law of our country does not amount to an “ONLY THE PEOPLE OF CLACTON CAN JUDGE ME” tattoo, and so it is that as Reform’s conference gets under way today, the party has been reported to the police for allegedly using foreign money to fund its activities. It’s all based on a covert sting carried out by Verbatim – an investigative group founded by journalists from the non-profit Centre for Climate Reporting – and broadcast last night on Channel 4 News.
Though Farage has some very significant walk-on parts in this secretly filmed footage, the chief protagonists in the hokey cokey are James Orr, the party’s director of policy, and Nigel’s right-hand man Dan Jukes. Jukes is one of the many Farage aides to physically resemble an Apprentice candidate who crashes out in week four after miscalculating quantities in the sweetshop task. Still, he’d make a lovely Rolf in a regional production of The Sound of Music. And, happily, would now have the time to really commit to the role.
“If Nigel makes it to No 10,” he honks at one point during filming carried out by an undercover “donor”, “you’re having a pint with who’s effectively going to be his chief of staff in No 10. If that isn’t a business interest, I don’t know what is.” As it turns out, the guy is effectively having a pint with someone the party chair, Lee Anderson, this morning said was “gone” with “no chance of them coming back”. Slightly less definitively, the official party statement said that Jukes and Orr had stepped down pending an internal investigation. Can’t imagine what form that will take. I always picture Reform’s internal affairs department as a toy phone ringing out in an abandoned wendy house.
But perhaps this sort of thing is the job of flailing enforcer/terminal shitposter Zia Yusuf, who this week could be found branding a possible Labour byelection candidate for Keir Starmer’s vacated Holborn and St Pancras seat as something other than the tireless community servant her career has thus far marked her out as. Or as Zia put it: “The front runner being foisted on the people of Holborn by Labour to replace the former Prime Minister Keir Starmer in our Parliament was born in Somalia. Do you understand what is happening?” If not, certainly one to discuss with that much-vaunted recent defector to Reform, the Iraq-born Nadhim Zahawi. Still, the episode does at least confirm Yusuf as the biggest Pick-Me in British politics. He’s really not like the other children of immigrants, you see – he actually enjoys being racist for approval.
Back to the undercover investigation, though, which a highly defensive Reform statement whinges was “perpetuated by foreign-funded climate-change activists posing as would-be party donors”. Foreign-funded! That’s a bit rich in the circumstances. But the real standout bit of footage for many will be the moment when Orr laments: “We just don’t have British resident donors, British entities, that would support us. That’s the grim reality.” From the horse’s mouth, then, comes apparent confirmation that Reform is funded by foreign-based money for reasons on which we can only speculate.
It’s often the incidental details that seem most weirdly illuminating. Take the scene when the fake American donor finally journeys to some sort of Clacton beer garden, where he and Farage and co seem to have settled themselves in one of a row of cursed teak gazebos. Here, Nigel chortles about “Guinness with a champagne top”, confirming his undying addiction to an even more annoying brand of alcohol-based identity politics than a Gin O’Clock poster.
He’ll no doubt be butching it out with a drink at the Reform conference this weekend. The rest of the country might do well to once again ponder the 64,000-of-indeterminately-sourced-dollars question: why does this sort of thing keep happening to Farage and his party? Is it because of a byzantine conspiracy involving climate activists, “the establishment”, the deep state and Big Gazebo? Or is it because they are just endlessly, repeatedly and ineptly dodgy? Watching the footage, it’s fairly difficult to conclude anything other than that we are dealing with a bunch of preposterously self-regarding amateurs.
We’ll have to see if this latest exposure further fans the anger that has been radiating off Farage all summer, ever since his undeclared £5m gift from a Thai-based crypto billionaire was revealed. As discussed here before, I am ever-more convinced that Farage is too mentally fragile for the highest office – indeed, leading anything other than an insurgent party seems to be either spinning him out or finding him out. Today’s attempt to shift focus saw him promise to declare a “national emergency” in the event he becomes prime minister. On the basis of all we keep discovering about him, you can’t argue with that.
Marina Hyde is a Guardian columnist
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