Farage/Reform caught "breaking the law on party funding"

Controversial: Politics & Govt Politics & Govt: In The News
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The little rat and the rest of the deform lot need to be in prison!

Channel 4 News and VerbatimInvestigations, a group of investigative journalists, reveal a plot to break the law on party funding at the highest levels of Reform UK.

Earlier this year James Orr, the party’s Head of Policy, and Dan Jukes, a close aide to Nigel Farage, arranged for a US company to secretly fund three influential polls that were commissioned by the party.

Mr Orr and Mr Jukes did not know that the supposed donors behind the US company were actually an undercover team from Verbatim posing as a wealthy American and his UK-based son, “William Lockwood”.

The US company that made the poll payments and the supposed American financier, resident in the US, are not permissible donors under electoral law. Donations of this size must be declared to the Electoral Commission.

Mr Jukes also proposed a scheme to get a larger sum of money into the party by having the American father donate via his UK-resident son. This would be illegal.

The undercover work was conducted by Verbatim, an investigative group independent of Channel 4 News that was founded by journalists from the Centre for Climate Reporting.

After being approached by Verbatim with the findings, journalists at Channel 4 News have since thoroughly checked and verified them. Channel 4 News did not pay for the polling and paid no money to Verbatim or any associated company.

Channel 4 News approached Reform UK, Mr Farage, Mr Jukes and Mr Orr for comment on the findings of this investigation. They did not comment but we understand they deny the allegations in full.

JL Partners, which conducted the polls, said it holds itself to high standards. A spokesman said: “Despite there being no concern about the accuracy of our work, the report did reveal weaknesses in our procedures. For that reason JL Partners is reviewing those procedures in order to eliminate possible grey areas and ambiguities and strengthen our safeguards for the future.”

A spokesperson from Telegraph Media Group said: “We are reviewing our future relationship with this polling company, as we believe we have been misled. As a matter of precaution we have suspended the relevant articles while The British Polling Council conducts a review.”

The Times said it “was not made aware of Reform’s involvement in commissioning and arranging payment of the poll”.

The British Polling Council said its members must declare publicly who has commissioned their polls. A spokeswoman said: “From the information provided to us by Channel 4 News, it appears there may have been deliberate breaches of this rule."

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And yet, you’ll get people who’ll say it’s fake news, and still think he’ll be pm, god help us if that becomes true…

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God help us even more if it doesn’t happen.

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Policy not person, surely.

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And that is from a traditional “Lefty” :icon_wink:

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Polar Shift :grin:

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To an extent. If it were the fella formerly called “Prince” Andrew in cahoots with the “Duchess of Sussex” Meghan advocating those policies, I suspect that things might not be going quite so rosey. :wink:

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Another very rich person promising to help make the lives of poorer people better.
Yeah sure!

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You may well be right. But, given that voting for the same old, same old, seems somewhat akin to the saying that “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results”, there is a case for trying something that at least has a semblance of a new approach.

Reform may prove to not be the answer after all, but then again the standard alternatives do seem to be part of the (complacent) problem. Worth a punt?

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There is nothing complicated about all this, simple workers have had to spend a lifetime complying with KPI’s
For some reason politicians haven’t, probably because its impossible to legislate for things beyond ones control.
That old chestnut :icon_wink:

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IMO any alternative to what we have now with Labour in the driving seat, must be worth a punt :clap::+1:

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Be careful where you place your bets…

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Nope, it is not.
There have already been notions that you were told were surely worth a punt but that ended up clearly not worth the punting mess that ensued. That is, things that seemed quite problematic and an easy solution was put forward - as worth a punt. And then…
First, privatise the water companies. The problem (made worse by years of under investment as a planned effort to make it worse) was the likely cost of upgrading all the infrastructure. The worth a punt solution was to privatise the lot. There was a lot of promises about how much better private money would make it all. The outcome we can all see today. Definitely not worth the punt, definitely costing all much much more. Definitely creating problems not foreseen. Lesson - do not believe empty promises.
Second, Brexit, The problem was the UK felt like it was going downhill and membership of the EU seemed costly. This problem was made worse by years of austerity - not by years of EU membership. The worth a punt solution was to leave the EU. There was a lot of promises about how it would make the UK so much better (sunlit uplands etc.). The outcome was a drop in trade and a reduction in GDP growth that works out more costly than EU membership. Not to mention all the other disadvantages and now we are likely stuck out the EU for decades. Definitely not worth the punt and definitely a costly hit to the UK economy that will continue for the forseeable. Lesson - do not believe empty promises.
Third, Truss & Kwarteng’s budget. The problem was slow growth in the UK economy. The promise was that massive tax cuts would stimulate the economy and generate more wealth. The outcome was that people noticed that this budget was not costed and did not seem to have been reviewed in the normal way. It would require a huge amount of year on year borrowing without any evidence that such cuts lead to sustained growth. So the bond markets that supply this extra borrowing quickly got cold feet so then the bond interest levels shot up. Which made pension funds, who depend on this market, work out that they might go bankrupt. Which meant the BoE had to spend billions buying bonds themselves to push the interest rates back down - after which the budget was dropped. Which all cost us all billions. Lesson - do not believe uncosted empty promises.
Do you see the theme here? It is not worth the punt.

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I think a lot of voters are simply bulling up Reform out of desperation and dissollusionment with the two main parties …I used to like them myself, but without Reform where does that leave the voters now … the political landscape is pretty barren.

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I agree - there is a real sense that each successive government is as bad, if not worse, than the previous. And all the successive governments have been either Tory or Labour - thus it seems obvious that this is the root of the problem. So the answer is “anything but these two”.
Except that isn’t really any sort of logic. Anything might actually be worse. That is a more likely scenario than anything might be better (and worth a punt). There are two reasons why this “anything but these two” is not logical. First, I’ve never heard anyone on this forum say that this anything might be the Green party. So the anything but these two only comes from people who support Reform. So they do not mean anything - they mean specifically Reform.
Second, there is zero evidence that Reform will do a better job. And given their manifesto a lot of indications that they will do a worse job. The ‘anything but these two’ option really needs to have substance behind the claim that they will do a better job.

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I wonder how many will rue the punt they took if reform got in when they have to find ££££ to pay for their insurance backed healthcare…?

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Who needs “Change” or “Reform” [The Word]
When “We” have the highly professional, unrelenting
“TV Channel 4”.
The “Singular” and vulnerable whistleblowers’ paradise.

Which Despite OFCOM’s constraints.
Relentlessly targets and exposes Fraudsters and Historical anomalies’
With Prime Investigating Journalists.
Backstage Research.
And formidable presenter questioning.
Always concluding with “What do YOU think,”
ie.With no comeback of.
What WE Think. [ OFCOM. Forbidden}

Having shown its capacity. To change a 579AD. dictate. To a 2025. First Female Archbishop. Incredible.

Nailing Farage, Reform, and its nefarious clan.
Should B A Dod-All.
Change. Through the comprehensible Front Door.

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Hi

I so disagree with you.

We are in this mess precisely because we have a two Part system with regular elections.

The result of this is a distinct lack of strategic planning and with the first year of every new Government spent undoing what the previous Government had started.

The entire system needs to ,change, starting with the 2 party system

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Hi,
So I entirely agree with you.
The lack of long term strategic planning has been criminal and the two party system and FPTP voting certainly makes this policy switching worse. I’m not sure that regular elections make any difference.
But its the move to PR that will take away the two party system. And with that, hopefully fairly soon, will come consensus, working together and multi-party coalitions. Rather than the two party approach of point scoring. With that can come longer term planning and even strategies that multiple parties sign up to.
The wrong way is to vote in a protest party (and Reform is nothing more than a protest) in the hope that they will be better or different. Even though nothing else has changed. That won’t enable strategies, or planning or anything other than radical, poorly thought through and damaging policies.

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AND.
Parliament. 650. >> 325.
All for the “Nations” Governance. As a Whole.
Not Singerly the Constituent affairs.
Being the role of Local Mayor’s and Chairpersons
For Notation

Upper House, 1500 >> 750. Non Heredity.

All of whom. With a Magnitude of. Staff. Advisors and Expenses.
Over Government becoming Vital Government at Westminster.
The Exchequer Gaining. £Billions.
The Electorate. Gaining Purposeful,
Uncluttered. Hooting, Booing Soundbite Governance.
For. The Cream of the Cream.
That Prioritises Internal Affairs.
External Affairs.
Being what UNO was created for.
Our Conforming, Contributing, and Supporting, The Majority Resolutions.