Does Nigel Farage really expect us to believe him when it comes to Reform donations? - Yorkshire Post Letters

The latest Reform donations scandal raises a question which seems increasingly difficult to avoid: does Nigel Farage really expect us to believe what he is telling us about Dan Jukes and James Orr?

Farage says they were merely “contractors” and had never previously been involved in fundraising. Really? Jukes was a long-standing senior aide to Farage, while Orr was Reform’s Head of Policy. These were hardly outsiders who had wandered in from the street. They had worked for Farage for many years.

Yet the undercover footage shows both discussing ways of facilitating funding from an overseas source, including having that source pay directly for polling commissioned for Reform. Most importantly, the proposal for the polling arrangement came from the Reform side, not the undercover team.

The polling was then paid for directly to the polling company by the undercover team as Reform proposed. Farage himself praised it as “bang for buck”, said it had worked, and thanked the supposed donors.

Reform argues that because no money entered its bank account, there was no wrongdoing. That may (or may not) ultimately be the legal conclusion. But it leaves a rather obvious question: if Reform figures commissioned the work, arranged for an overseas source to pay for it and Farage enthusiastically approved the result, is it really credible to portray this as nothing to do with Reform?

And is it really credible that these senior figures had simply never been involved in fundraising before? Farage said they hadn’t. How trusting would you have to be to believe that?

Farage says his own family are begging him to leave politics. I suspect a considerable proportion of the British public will lend enthusiastic support to that plea.