BBC claims Farage is ducking them over donation scandal

Nigel Farage is facing significant heat at the moment over a £5m ‘gift’ he failed to declare. Farage faces two separate investigations on the matter, and he’s also facing question about whether he used the money to purchase a £1.4m house in Surrey.

On the topic of the house, the BBC have been trying to get Farage on to discuss the matter. This was how Reform responded:

Victoria Derbyshire, "We asked for an interview with Nigel Farage tonight and we got a thumbs down emoji from his team"

"Over the last couple of weeks we've asked for an interview with Nigel Farage or anyone from Reform UK's front bench ten times"

Jake Berry, who used to be a… pic.twitter.com/l594M6EQ1Q

— Farrukh (@implausibleblog) May 19, 2026

Farage rattled and rolled

Jake Berry is a former Tory MP who also served as the party’s chairman. In July 2025, he defected to Reform, stating:

I’ve always believed that change comes with challenging the old order. In shaking up the system when it isn’t working

Oh yeah – we’re sure he’s always thought that – that’s why he joined the Tories – the longest running political party in the UK.

In the clip at the top, Berry said:

Well, the question is how did Nigel Farage pay for his house? We know because he told us he did an interview with Harry Cole and he said that he received money from Irem as a celebrity, which is actually part of a wider business career… Including representing companies that sell things like gold, including doing appearances in celebrity things. He got that money, he used it to buy his house, The explanation does add up.

I’ll tell you what doesn’t add up is this inference that money received 35 days earlier enabled him to buy the house. Anyone who’s ever bought a house recently know it takes about six months. And Nigel’s been really clear about this. He said he’d passed proof of funding, he’d agreed to buy this house a long time before this gift was received. And I accept his explanation.

For clarity’s sake, the £1.4m Surrey house is different to the Clacton house. The latter house also attracted controversy when people accused Farage of using his partner’s name on the deeds to avoid paying £44k in stamp duty.

The accusation Berry alluded to is that Farage actually paid for the house with an undeclared ‘gift’ of £5m he received from foreign-based crypto billionaire Christopher Harborne. Notably, this wasn’t the only thing Farage did after receiving the gift:

Here are the facts as laid down by Derbyshire:
1) Farage says he won’t run
2) crypto billionaire pays him £5mill
3) Farage U-turns and runs
4) Farage hides the donation
5) Farage announces if he wins the election he will slash capital gains tax for crypto firms

Same old same old https://t.co/ViEIFZkf3A

— Alonso Gurmendi (@Alonso_GD) May 6, 2026

Back to the interview, Derbyshire said:

The explanation that he bought that house from the fee from I’m a Celeb when the money was paid into his media business company, and was still in the account, according to the FT, after the house purchase was made.

In other words, it seems to literally be impossible that Farage could have paid for the house as Reform is claiming:

Another whopper from Farage. His Celebrity money was paid into his Thorn in the Side account (his tax dodging vehicle) and never left it to buy a house. https://t.co/rY3yZXY01s pic.twitter.com/MOaCTYKMrI

— Mr Ethical 🚩 (@nw_nicholas) May 16, 2026

On the back foot

In the interview, Berry got quite flustered and attempted to change the subject:

"He told us… he received money from I'm A Celebrity."

Sir Jake Berry, Reform UK, defends his party leader and argues that the continued focus on his finances is just "the mainstream media desperate to keep this story going against Nigel Farage". #Newsnight pic.twitter.com/4bquGSUITI

— BBC Newsnight (@BBCNewsnight) May 19, 2026

Berry also got the name of Reform’s candidate in the Makerfield by-election wrong:

Jake Berry: “What I think is extraordinary about this by-election, is you have ‘Robert Jenkins’, a brilliant candidate for Reform…”

Victoria Derbyshire: “That’s not his name by the way”

Jake Berry: “Sorry?”

Victoria Derbyshire: “It’s Robert Kenyon”#newsnight pic.twitter.com/3ZIdwbXvLw

— David (@Zero_4) May 19, 2026

It seems clear why Farage doesn’t want to respond to these questions; it’s because he doesn’t have good answers.

Sooner or later, however, he will have to account for himself.

Featured image via Getty Images (Ryan Jenkinson)