The Labour party has written to Nigel Farage urging him to stop evading scrutiny over a £5 million personal gift he received from Thailand-based crypto billionaire Christopher Harborne. The letter coincides with the approval of a planning application revealing the Reform UK leader's plans to transform a dilapidated Kent property into a luxury beachfront residence.
Farage is under investigation by the parliamentary standards commissioner after the Guardian revealed that he received the £5 million gift in the weeks before he reversed his decision not to stand as an MP in the 2024 general election. He was subsequently elected as MP for Clacton in Essex and maintained a high media profile with weekly press conferences, which have ceased since the Guardian broke the news in April.
Anna Turley, the Labour party chair, accused Farage of running from scrutiny. She said: It is time he ended his deafening silence and came clean with the public about what has happened. He cannot keep dodging questions and changing his story. Farage initially stated the gift was for personal security for the rest of his life, but later altered his account, claiming it was a reward from Harborne for his Brexit campaigning. He has insisted there was no need to declare the £5 million to authorities because he was not an MP at the time of receipt.
In the letter sent to Farage, Turley wrote that his shifting accounts have raised further serious questions about whether he has broken parliamentary rules, potential conflicts of interest, and whether he has told the truth. She added that the matter is of significant public interest, stating: The British people, and the relevant authorities and regulators, deserve one clear and truthful account of what happened. You have refused to answer questions from journalists about this extraordinary sum of money. That is not acceptable.
On Sunday, details emerged of Farage's plans to overhaul a beachfront property in Kent. Farage's company, Thorn in the Side Ltd, purchased the home in Greatstone on the south Kent coast in March 2023 for £575,000. An application was submitted to redevelop the property, including a large extension, as reported by the Daily Mirror. A design statement said the proposed works would transform the property into a high-quality, contemporary family home with four bedrooms, a sea-view balcony with glazed privacy screens, a log burner, a lift, and six bathrooms. A housing expert estimated the work could cost up to £700,000 and could make the property worth as much as £1.5 million.
In May, Farage acquired another property weeks after receiving Harborne's gift. He personally paid £1.4 million for a Surrey home, which is not mortgaged. Reform told the BBC that Farage's £1.5 million fee for participating in the ITV show I'm a Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here! in late 2023 paid for the property, and that the purchase had commenced before he received the gift. However, the Financial Times reported that accounts for Thorn in the Side, which handles Farage's media activities, suggested this money was not withdrawn at the time of the house purchase.
A spokesperson for Farage said that work on the first planning application for the Kent house began in November 2023, long before the unconditional gift was made. They added: The second application related to more modest plans than those originally proposed. No building work has even commenced on the property in question. Regarding the Surrey house, a Reform spokesperson previously said it was not bought with Harborne's gift, suggesting that anti-money laundering checks were carried out before the gift was made. The spokesperson said: Nigel has multiple sources of income, as you can see from his parliamentary register.
