By Channel 4 News Investigations Team
Nigel Farage and other senior members of Reform UK have been filmed by undercover reporters celebrating secret new foreign donations.
Channel 4 News and Verbatim, a group of investigative journalists, can today reveal a plot to break the law on party funding at the highest levels of Reform UK.
Earlier this year James Orr, the party’s Head of Policy, and Dan Jukes, a close aide to Mr Farage, arranged for a US company to fund three influential polls that the party had commissioned.
Results from these seemingly independent polls made headline news and two of them helped galvanise support for the party ahead of the local elections in May. But the public was not told that Reform UK had commissioned the polls and would be arranging for an “off the book” backer to fund them. The three polls cost £32,500 in total.
Mr Orr and Mr Jukes did not know that the supposed donors behind the US company were actually an undercover team posing as a wealthy American and his UK-based son, “William Lockwood”.
In a meeting over oysters and wine in his Clacton constituency, Mr Farage met with the undercover team in late July after the three polls had been published and paid for. He believed them to be “William” and his father. Mr Farage said the polling was “amazing” and provided “bang for buck,” adding: “It worked. Boom.”
When discussion turned to a potential larger donation to Reform UK one of the undercover team made clear that the plan would be for the UK-based son to make the payment and be the declared donor even though the money was originally coming from the US-based father. Such an arrangement - which was first proposed by Mr Jukes at an earlier meeting - would be illegal.
Mr Farage replied “thank you” and then “both of you, thank you.”
When the UK-based son had started talking about the “next phase” of their financial support, Mr Farage also said “it’s all above board”.
The undercover reporter had previously told Mr Farage’s aides that the potential future donation would be for £500,000.
At the time Mr Farage and his party were already facing intense scrutiny over their finances and fighting a by-election following allegations of secret funding, which Mr Farage has always denied was illegal.
The undercover work was conducted by Verbatim, an investigative group independent of Channel 4 News that was founded by journalists from the Centre for Climate Reporting. After being approached by Verbatim with the findings, journalists at Channel 4 News have since thoroughly checked and verified them. Channel 4 News did not pay for the polling and paid no money to Verbatim or any associated company.
Bob Posner, a lawyer and former Chief Executive of the UK Electoral Commission, has seen the key findings and said there should now be a criminal investigation as “serious criminal offences” may have been committed.
The US company that made the poll payments and the supposed American financier, resident in the US, are not permissible donors under electoral law. The Electoral Commission makes clear that political party donations include funding that helps a party meet costs and expenses, such as payments for studies and research.
Donations from an impermissible donor legally must be reported to the Electoral Commission within 30 days of each payment being made, and a party must return the money to the donor in that time. Any legitimate donations from permissible donors that are worth more than £11,180 in a calendar year legally must also be declared to the Electoral Commission.
According to official records, none of the polling payments appear to have been so far disclosed by Reform UK to the Electoral Commission, either as permissible or impermissible donations, even though most of the relevant reporting deadlines have passed.
Channel 4 News asked Reform UK if Mr Farage knew the polls were being funded by a secret financier using a US company before the payments were made, or if he was told about them later. They did not comment. The proposed larger donation was never made.
“We could easily get away with it”
Senior figures at Reform UK have been meeting with the UK-based Verbatim undercover reporter since last year and regularly discussing secret payments to benefit the party.
In some meetings Mr Orr - who aside from his role with Reform UK is a theologian and associate professor at the University of Cambridge - proposed other potential plans but dropped some of them due to legal concerns or concerns about the potential need to disclose to the Electoral Commission.
At a meeting in January he explained to the undercover reporter that Reform UK had commissioned a poll run by the political research firm JL Partners. This poll was related to Labour’s plans at the time to cancel local elections, which Reform UK was fighting.
Mr Orr said there would be “nothing untoward” about the undercover reporter potentially paying for polling. But he also stressed the secrecy of such an arrangement, saying: “I wouldn’t breathe a word of this to anybody”. At the time he said Mr Farage would not know about it.
On 17 January the JL Partners poll was reported by the Telegraph on its front page under the headline: “Labour would face wipeout if elections went ahead”, with no mention of Reform UK’s involvement.
It is understood that Reform UK’s involvement was not shared with the Telegraph. Findings of the poll were widely shared on social media by senior Reform figures. The government later rowed back on plans to cancel the elections.
A few days after the poll was published, Mr Orr arranged for the undercover reporters’ US company details to be shared with JL Partners to arrange payment for it. It cost £18,000. The US company that made this payment and others related to this investigation was set up and controlled by Verbatim.
At another meeting, while discussing a near-identical polling scheme to what the undercover team had already paid for, Mr Orr said that “if there was any way of seeing it, it would technically be a donation-in-kind” but added: “Is anybody gonna find out? Am I gonna tell anyone... obviously not, so the reality is we could easily get away with it.”
He also joked that they could “literally do the old John Le Carré - you print it off, put it in a brown envelope, drop it off somewhere.”
Mr Orr suggested there would be little chance of consequences because the proposal was only for “technical breaches” of rules and the Electoral Commission was “completely useless”. He also said the regulator was “so dumb and ineffective”. They did not go through with the specific plan for polling discussed at that meeting.
“Those little clandestine projects are so valuable”
In another meeting with the UK-based undercover reporter, Mr Jukes described their polling arrangement as “highly important” and said they had big impact, were relatively good value for money “and they don’t show up anywhere in public records”. He added: “Those little clandestine projects are so valuable.”
At a Reform UK reception, Mr Jukes introduced the undercover reporter in one conversation as: “key donor for off the book project”.
The undercover team paid for two more JL Partners polls that appeared in national newspapers without mention of Reform UK’s involvement in commissioning them.
One cost £4,500 and appeared in the Telegraph on 10 April under the headline “Two thirds of voters want Starmer out” and another, costing £10,000, was reported on the front page of the Times on 1 June under the headline: “Reform vote in unions at same level as Labour”.
It is understood that the Telegraph and the Times were not told about Reform UK’s involvement in these polls from JL Partners, which is a well-established firm that has been used across the media, including in the past by Channel 4 News.
The day before the meeting with Mr Farage in late July, Mr Orr said that Mr Farage was “aware of the support” but did not go into the “weeds”, adding that Mr Farage “knows you are a significant donor”.
Mr Jukes proposed the plan to have the undercover reporter - as a UK resident - make a substantial donation to Reform UK, even if the source of the money was his American father, at an earlier meeting in May. Mr Jukes also joked that he would take a five million pound “personal unconditional gift”, saying “I know a guy”
Mr Jukes also listed other supporters of Reform UK who, he said, had donated to the party via their children.
Stressing the benefits of their relationship, Mr Jukes said: “If Nigel makes it to Number 10, you’re having a pint with who’s effectively gonna be his chief of staff in Number 10. If that isn’t a business interest, I don’t know what is.”
The plan for the UK-based son to make the larger donation using funds originally from his father was also discussed with Mr Orr at a later meeting. Mr Orr said “If it’s your name you’re the donor, your father has got deniability.”
When the undercover reporter made clear that the funds would originate from the US, Mr Orr said the party will “need to know a bit” but that it would be “standard vetting” over source of funds and “that’ll be totally fine”.
A few days after the meeting the undercover reporters had with Mr Farage, Mr Jukes called the UK-based reporter and described how Reform UK planned to spend some of the proposed £500,000 donation to vet Reform candidates.
Electoral law expert calls for a criminal investigation
Mr Posner described the facilitation of payments for polls by Reform party figures as “shocking”, adding that “from what I’ve seen it was commissioned by the party, it was polling for the party and hiding it means they’re hiding a donation”. He further said: “[it’s] against the law and the evasion of the rules, the attempt of evasion of rules, to take actions to further evasion of the rules, these are serious criminal offences.”
Mr Posner said that Mr Farage had “quite difficult questions to answer”, adding: “He appears to be aware of what’s happening and he appears to be aware that it’s a means of getting round the rules, of avoiding the rules on donations and that’s of serious concern.”
At the time of the undercover meeting, Mr Farage was fighting a by-election, having resigned earlier in the month following intense scrutiny over his and his party’s finances and an investigation by the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards. He was re-elected last month.
The Commissioner is considering whether Mr Farage should have declared £5 million that he received from crypto-currency billionaire Christopher Harborne in 2024. Mr Farage has said that the money was an “unconditional gift” intended to cover his personal security and that he did not need to declare it because it was not political.
The Commissioner is also considering whether benefits to Mr Farage in the year before he was elected as an MP should have been declared from George Cottrell, a convicted fraudster and longtime ally of Mr Farage.
Mr Farage has said that Mr Cottrell has given him nothing since he was elected in July 2024 and that any previous support was not related to politics and “irrelevant”. When he resigned, sparking the by-election, he said: “I have done nothing wrong. I have not broken the law in any way at all.”
Channel 4 News approached Reform UK, Mr Farage, Mr Jukes and Mr Orr for comment on the findings of this investigation. They did not comment but we understand they deny the allegations in full.
JL Partners said it holds itself to high standards. A spokesperson said: “Despite there being no concern about the accuracy of our work, the report did reveal weaknesses in our procedures. For that reason JL Partners is reviewing those procedures in order to eliminate possible grey areas and ambiguities and strengthen our safeguards for the future.”
A spokesperson from Telegraph Media Group said: “We are reviewing our future relationship with this polling company, as we believe we have been misled. As a matter of precaution we have suspended the relevant articles while The British Polling Council conducts a review.”
The Times said it “was not made aware of Reform’s involvement in commissioning and arranging payment of the poll”.
The British Polling Council said its members must declare publicly who has commissioned their polls. A spokesperson said: “From the information provided to us by Channel 4 News, it appears there may have been deliberate breaches of this rule. We will be seeking further information from the BPC member concerned.”
An Electoral Commission spokesperson said: “Information about any potential attempt to evade the controls on donations is for the police to consider.”
I feel sick at the thought of this lot governing our country.
Go Channel 4! Good job. Reform as a political party is just a load of self serving shits. No morals whatsoever.