Police Investigate Nigel Farage’s Reform UK Over Donations

British police say they are launching a criminal ​investigation into allegations that the populist Reform UK party, ‌led by Nigel Farage, breached rules around political donations, after its officials were filmed by undercover reporters.

“Detectives have assessed the information ​provided and determined that there are potential offences requiring investigation,” London’s Metropolitan Police said in statement on Wednesday.

“The ​potential offences are similar in nature to matters already ⁠under investigation by the Met’s Special Enquiry Team relating to ​donations made to the same political party.”

Two of Farage’s senior aides, Dan Jukes and James Orr, were suspended last week after a Channel 4 investigation resulted in a number of allegations, including that the party had broken electoral law by arranging for a wealthy foreign donor to pay ​for political polling.

“Reform UK denies any wrongdoing and will fully ​cooperate with the investigation,” the party said in a statement. “We won’t be ‌commenting ⁠further while a live investigation is underway.”

Until recently, Reform held a commanding lead in opinion polls over both the governing Labour Party and the Conservatives, but this has faltered since allegations were made about an undeclared 5 million-pound ($6.8 million) gift to Farage, which he has said he did not think needed to be declared as it was a personal gift rather than a political donation.

The undercover investigation, broadcast on Sept. 3 by Channel 4 during Reform’s annual party conference, was carried out by ​investigative group Verbatim, which said it spent a ​year speaking ⁠to party officials about possible donations.

The undercover team posed as donors from the United States with British connections, eventually having ⁠lunch ​with Farage, who later told the ​BBC that he was “frankly not listening” to the conversation.

This is a developing story and will be updated.

Reuters contributed to this report