Farage failed to register support from convicted donor

An investigation found Nigel Farage did not register multiple forms of support from George Cottrell, who paid for private security, drivers, social media staff and accommodation in the year before Farage was elected MP for Clacton on July 4, 2024.

House of Commons rules require newly elected MPs to declare benefits worth more than £300 received in the 12 months before an election if those benefits relate in any way to political activity. Farage's parliamentary register lists a £9,253 trip to Belgium funded by Cottrell and a later £15,276 donation to cover flights; no other support from Cottrell appears in his campaign accounts or the register beyond those entries.

Lawyers for Cottrell confirmed he hired staff for Farage's private office and paid them by bank transfer. The payments described include costs for private security, drivers, social media staff and accommodation.

Cottrell pleaded guilty to wire fraud in a US money laundering investigation in 2016, was arrested at Chicago's O'Hare airport while travelling with Farage, and served eight months in prison. He later moved to Montenegro and has been linked to an offshore betting platform that accepts large wagers in cash and a US dollar stablecoin.

The platform's website was registered days after a July 2020 lunch in Mayfair attended by Farage, Cottrell and Christopher Harborne, a businessman who has donated more than £12 million to Reform UK and holds an estimated 12% stake in the issuer of the stablecoin used on the platform. Reporting states that as recently as 2022 deposits from UK customers to the platform were routed through two British shell companies, one of them owned by Reform UK's current data protection officer.

Providing unlicensed gambling services to UK customers can be a criminal offence; Cottrell has denied personally seeking clients for the platform.

Farage is already under review by the Parliamentary Standards Commissioner, Daniel Greenberg, over an unregistered roughly £5 million personal payment from Harborne in 2024. Farage has stated the Harborne payment was intended to cover his personal security. The latest reporting shows Cottrell had been paying for security in the months before the Harborne payment.

Liberal Democrat MP Josh Babarinde has written to the standards commissioner requesting an investigation. If the commissioner finds a serious breach in the Harborne matter, Farage could face a Commons suspension and a possible recall petition in his Clacton constituency.

A spokesperson for Farage described the reporting as ‘baseless and contrived' and said no rules were broken because the support came before he was an active politician. Cottrell and Harborne both hold financial interests in the crypto sector. Farage has advocated a Bank of England bitcoin reserve and a capital gains tax cut for crypto, and in March took a 6.3% stake in a UK bitcoin treasury firm.

The standards commissioner's office has been asked to examine the Harborne payment and now faces calls to probe the newly described assistance from Cottrell.