Nigel Farage Breached The MPs' Code Of Conduct 17 Times, Watchdog Confirms

Nigel Farage committed 17 parliamentary breaches by registering his financial interests as an MP late, according to the commissioner for standards.

The MP for Clacton failed to log more than £380,000 of payments of outside earnings – excluding his £93,904-a-year salary – within the 28-day time period set by the Commons.

That includes sums such as a lump payment from GB News – where Farage is a presenter – of £51,438 which was received on August 29 but not declared until October 3.

A total of six GB News payments were declared late overall.

Payments from speaking engagements – including from a US-based global consulting firm Imperial Independent Media – amounting to more than £25,000 together, were not declared until three or four months afterwards.

Other payments which he failed to declare include £91,200 from Direct Bullion, a gold supplier which Farage helped advertise back in August.  

After a three-month probe into the Reform UK leader, watchdog Daniel Greenberg announced on Monday that he believed these delays had been “inadvertent” and were down to “staffing and other administrative issues”.

“Farage has acknowledged and apologised for his breaches of the rules,” Greenberg said, adding that the interests will be registered in future.

In a letter to the watchdog sent on November 12, Farage said: “I accept that I have breached this section of the Code and take full responsibility, and I would first of all like to say I am sincerely sorry.”

He said there was an “administrative error on behalf of me and my team”, and that “unlike most members”, he has a “very complicated and complex set of interests”.

Farage claimed: “Please let me reassure you, there was no malicious intent to deceive or mislead you or the public in the lateness of these declarations; it was an honest and genuine error.”

In a subsequent letter, the Clacton MP said: “I have been extremely let down by a very senior member of staff and would like to discuss this privately and confidentially with you in an in-person meeting.

“I feel that this would be the most appropriate course of action, as there are intricacies and details which I think would be easier to discuss verbally.”

A transcript from that meeting reveals Farage claimed he does not “do computers” which is why he relies on “someone else to do those things for me.”

He also told Greenberg: “The only explanation is that, you know, our, our 15 political lives have exploded in the last 18 months in ways that we could never have comprehended. We are overwhelmed in every sense.

“Even my MP e-mail gets 1000 emails a day. And we’ve basically failed to cope with, or to be frank, not just with this, but with many other things too. So I’m going to staff up, I’m going to get outside money to increase the size of my office and the things that I do.”

Greenberg chose not to refer the matter to the Committee on Standards.

A Labour Party spokesperson said: “Nigel Farage is so distracted with tempting failed Tory politicians into his party that he can’t even get the basics right. He isn’t on the side of working people – he’s just lining his pockets when he should be standing up for his constituents.

“He boasts about making money ‘because I’m Nigel Farage’, raking in millions through various outside jobs. But he neglects to do the important work that hard-pressed taxpayers fork out for him to do.

“Labour will tighten the rules on MPs’ second jobs to make sure the public get the attention they expect and deserve from their elected representatives.”