Nigel Farage made a bombshell announcement that he is resigning as an MP.
The Reform UK leader’s move, unveiled in a statement at 2pm on Tuesday on his future in public life, will mean there is a by-election in his Clacton constituency.
Read More
But many voters will be left wondering why has he done this?
The answer lies in the swirl of financial allegations facing Mr Farage.
He denies any wrongdoing.
But he is seeking the backing of voters in Clacton in what he sought to portray as “a people versus the Establishment” battle.
He can then claim he has a mandate to be the MP no matter any findings against him made by at least one official investigation.
Mr Farage has faced a series of recent allegations in the media about his financial links.
But in his announcement, he said: “Why should they be the people that decide my fate? When, as I repeat, I have done nothing wrong.
“I thought about it hard and I have decided today I will resign as a Member of Parliament for Clacton-on-Sea, thereby forcing a by-election, which should happen, I hope, in short order.”
He added: “Now I’ve decided that the people of Clacton should be the judges of my actions.
“This will be a people versus the establishment by-election. It’s a chance to stick two fingers up to the entire Establishment to frankly tell them where to go, and that is why I will be putting my name forward to stand in this by-election.
“I will fight to win. I will fight to continue the political revolution that Reform has started, and I would say this to you, the voters of Clacton, if I win, you win, because if I lose, they win, and we will never with the two old parties get the type of fundamental change that we need to fix broken Britain.”
Mr Farage’s move is bold, and was partly triggered by his anger at what he sees as media intrusion on his family.
But it is unlikely to get him off the hook of any official probe by Parliament’s anti-sleaze watchdog who will judge any investigation on the facts discovered rather than any popular mandate that Mr Farage may have recently gained.
If he is found to have broken any parliamentary rules, on declaring interests, the by-election is unlikely to reduce any punishment.
Mr Farage faces intense scrutiny over financial support given to him by a convicted fraudster, and a £5 million gift from a Reform UK donor.
He is under pressure following reports that long-term ally George Cottrell had provided funding for security and staffing in the year before he was elected.
Labour has asked the Electoral Commission to investigate whether the support should have been declared because Mr Farage was a prominent figure in Reform even before he returned to frontline politics.
The party also questioned whether Montenegro-based Mr Cottrell was a permissible donor, claiming it was not clear whether he was on a UK electoral register at the time.
Mr Farage is already facing a parliamentary investigation over a £5m gift he received from Reform donor Christopher Harborne before he became an MP.
Labour Party chairwoman Anna Turley wrote to the Electoral Commission to call for an investigation.
She said: “Farage can’t brazenly brush this off as being ‘none of your business’ any longer.
“He needs to own his self-inflicted scandal and prove he’s not been secretly breaking the rules and taking the British public for fools.”
Mr Farage, though, appeared to have won the backing of Donald Trump in his fight against what the Reform leader called an “establishment hit job”.
In a post on his Truth Social platform on Monday, the US president shared a link to an article on The National Pulse website titled They’re Running The 2024 Anti-Trump Playbook on Nigel Farage.
Trump personally called Mr Farage to congratulate him on his political success in achieving what he said was the removal of Sir Keir Starmer from No 10, The Times reported.
As well as Labour’s call for the elections watchdog to intervene, the Liberal Democrats have already demanded a parliamentary sleaze inquiry.
Under rules in place at the time of Mr Farage’s election in 2024, new MPs were required to register any gifts worth more than £300 they received in the previous 12 months, except where the gift “could not be reasonably thought by others” to relate to their political activities.
Mr Cottrell reportedly recruited and paid three staff to work on Mr Farage’s social media before the general election, and has continued to allow him to use a five-storey Georgian property he rented near Buckingham Palace.
The Liberal Democrats have called for Parliament’s standards commissioner, who is already investigating a £5 million gift the MP received from crypto-billionaire Mr Harborne, to examine the support.
Mr Farage reacted angrily when approached at an airport by a Sky News journalist asking whether it had been a mistake not to declare gifts from the ally.
“You tell your bosses, you harass my family any more… serious consequences. That’s what your organisation has done this morning. Go away,” he said.
Sky said it had not contacted anyone from Mr Farage’s family about the story.
The Reform leader on Sunday issued a statement saying he had not broken any rules.
He said: “I have done no wrongdoing, followed the rules and I am now considering legal action against The Sunday Times.
“It’s now clear the establishment will stop at nothing to hurt Reform – we want to smash their cosy consensus.”
Reform UK’s Treasury spokesman Robert Jenrick has said Mr Cottrell is an “old friend” of Mr Farage and has “no formal role within Reform”.
Mr Cottrell was jailed for eight months in the US in 2017 after pleading guilty to a charge of wire fraud after admitting attempting to defraud criminals on the dark web by masquerading as a money launderer.
He was arrested as he and Mr Farage travelled back to Britain after a trip to the US.
Mr Cottrell reportedly remains a close adviser to Mr Farage after first becoming involved in Ukip as a volunteer in the run-up to the Brexit referendum.
Parliament’s standards commissioner Daniel Greenberg is already investigating whether Mr Farage should have registered an undisclosed £5 million gift from Thai-based billionaire Mr Harborne.
If found to have breached the rules, Mr Farage could face sanctions including a Commons suspension that could trigger a recall petition and a by-election in his seat.
The Reform leader has repeatedly said that he was not required to register the gift, which he has said was purely personal.