Three months after the Guardian revealed that Nigel Farage accepted a 5m gift from Christopher Harborne, a billionaire donor to Reform UK, the consequences of the disclosure are still playing out. The story has proved the most significant in an ongoing investigation.
Little by little, a picture has emerged of how Reform UK has been funded and by whom, with each new detail raising more questions for Farage and the coterie around him.
Secret donations and bank alerts
Aside from the gift, the Guardian has revealed details of secret donations, a behind-the-scenes loan from a donor, and how the Metropolitan police have interviewed two people under caution. Sources have described how staff at several different banks were so concerned about a range of transactions involving senior party figures that they reported them to the National Crime Agency.
Financial industry sources said George Cottrell, a convicted fraudster based in Montenegro, transferred a total of more than $2m to his mother Fiona in 2024, with each sum arriving shortly before she made substantial donations to the party.
An interlinked circle
The stories have given voters a much clearer idea of the people and the financial transactions that underpin Reform. It is a financially and politically incestuous set of relationships. Farage is friends with George Cottrell, said to be an unpaid adviser to Reform. Cottrell is friends with Harborne, the billionaire who has given millions to the party, and with Farage himself.
Farage's deputy Richard Tice says he has known the Cottrell family for 50 years. Fiona is also a significant donor to the party, and George has lent money to Tice. These five people are at the heart of a party that believes it can form the next government. Without them and their money, Reform would not exist in its current form.
Deflection and legal threats
Scrutiny has provoked Farage into an array of explanations for why he accepted the 5m gift, and broad declarations that there is an establishment plot to undermine him. Rather than answering questions posed by the Guardian, he and other senior Reform figures have sent threatening legal letters or attempted to spoil the Guardian's stories with pre-emptive interviews with the Daily Telegraph.
Farage has also made unsubstantiated claims about the Guardian's reporting, citing without evidence illegal hacks involving Russia or state-orchestrated leaks. Throwing sand in the air is one way of distracting attention, but when it settles, certain facts remain unchanged and certain questions remain unanswered.
Questions about George Cottrell
Several of those questions relate to George Cottrell, known as Posh George, who has been at Farage's side for at least a decade. In January, the Guardian reported on his alleged role as a frontman for the betting syndicate of megastar gambler and football proprietor Tony Bloom. Court documents claimed Cottrell, as well as raking in millions by allowing Bloom's syndicate to place bets using accounts in his name, also had a financial interest in the offshore gambling outfit Tether.bet.
The claims went further: that he had approached gamblers in the UK to use Tether.bet, despite that outfit not holding a UK gambling licence. Lawyers for Cottrell repeatedly said he was not a director or shareholder of Tether.bet and had not commented on the court proceedings, as he was not party to them. Cottrell, who was unable to pay for legal representation when initially arrested in the US in 2016 and relied on family assistance, has seen a rapid reversal in fortunes since his release from US prison in 2017. In recent years he has pursued a costly, jet-set lifestyle, often using Montenegro as a base.
Farage's finances
Then there are the questions around Farage, who said he was skint in 2017. Not any more. He now owns a number of houses and has shown flashes of anger when asked about this and what he has done with the 5m given to him by Harborne. Literally none of your business, he said to the BBC.
The 5m came via a deed of gift in April 2024, just as Farage, who was the main shareholder of Reform UK, weighed his political future. Sources later claimed some of the 5m was not transferred to Farage until just before he declared he would stand in the 2024 general election. Lawyers for Harborne have said their client's gift was unconditional and that, when it was made, Harborne did not foresee Farage returning to politics.
Support for Tice
Cottrell, sometimes called Farage's chief of staff (Reform has said he has never held an official position in the party), was also providing financial support to Tice behind the scenes. He lent Tice's company 78,100 in late 2024 when Tice was already a sitting MP. Tice said the money was repaid, but only after he made a donation of 613,000 via the same company, Tisun Investments, to Reform. Tice has called it a bridging loan, a type of short-term loan.
But the benefits and support Cottrell gave to Farage, and the 78,100 loan to Tice, were a drop in the ocean compared with the apparent largesse Cottrell may have extended to the party. His mother, a woman with aristocratic roots but understood to be of relatively modest means, secretly gave Britain Means Business, a fundraising vehicle for Reform solely controlled by Tice, 1m on 10 June 2024, weeks before the July general election. Half the sum, 500,000, was almost immediately transferred into the party despite queries from bankers to Tice about the origin of the funds. This was in addition to two more donations of 250,000 made in her own name in May of the same year.
Police and parliamentary investigations
On Wednesday, the Guardian revealed, according to financial industry sources, that sums totalling more than $2m were transferred to Fiona by her son. The pair have now been interviewed under caution as part of a police investigation into the 2024 donations from Fiona to the party and Britain Means Business.
Fiona has not responded to multiple efforts to contact her. George has not denied giving his mother large sums of money. Instead, his lawyers said any political donations his mother had made had been entirely her decision and were a matter for her. Two parliamentary standards investigations are due to be concluded in the autumn, one into the 5m gift Farage received from Harborne and another into his benefits from Cottrell. There is an ongoing Metropolitan police investigation.
