Half an hour with the commissioner

Nigel Farage has been interviewed by the standards commissioner over whether he should have declared a £5m gift from the crypto billionaire Christopher Harborne. The Reform UK leader spent about half an hour answering questions over the money, the Sunday Times reported. The interview took place in the month before the report's publication, which is a sign the investigation process is nearing a conclusion.

Reform UK is not believed to have been told that the commissioner's report is finished. Under usual procedure, an MP under investigation is notified before the process concludes.

What happens next in the inquiry

A serious breach finding would send the case to the standards committee of MPs and lay members. Its options include:

• •Asking for further evidence before reaching a decision.
• •Recommending a sanction or overriding the report.

A suggested suspension from the Commons of more than 10 days, if parliament agrees, would leave Farage facing a recall petition and a second byelection in his Clacton constituency.

The £5m gift at issue

The investigation began shortly after the Guardian revealed in May that Harborne had given Farage £5m shortly before the last election in 2024. Farage maintains the gift was for his personal security and has said it was a personal matter, not political, that did not need to be declared. Under the rules, financial support related to an MP's job must be registered if it is given in the 12 months before they enter parliament.

Reform UK under parallel pressure

The investigation is running alongside other pressures on Farage's party. After a slide in the polls over the summer, Reform UK is about to begin a major reorganisation at its headquarters to try to revive its fortunes, which insiders said would involve a big shake-up of staffing. The party's head of policy, James Orr, and Farage's close aide Dan Jukes have both been suspended.

Orr and Jukes face an internal investigation into whether they encouraged illegal foreign donations during an undercover investigation by reporters from Verbatim. Lawyers are carrying out that inquiry and are expected to reach their conclusions soon, and the matter is also the subject of a police inquiry.

The wider picture:

• •The party is also weighing how to deploy £72m donated by Harborne and another crypto billionaire, Ben Delo.
• •The sums have prompted calls from political rivals for a donation cap.
• •One possible use is relaunching a TV channel that produces Reform-related video coverage and a show fronted by Farage.
• •Whether the donations fall within the rules is unclear: the government is bringing forward legislation to ban overseas donors from giving more than £100,000 in a calendar year, backdated to March this year.
• •Harborne joined the UK electoral register only this summer, while Delo has been largely based in Hong Kong, although he has been on the register for some years.
• •If the donations are ruled impermissible, Reform could have to hand them back, a prospect likely to lead to court action.

Farage told the Sunday Times he thought the reaction to the donations would be far worse, but said it had produced: