Police launch criminal investigation into allegations Britain’s hard-right Reform UK party broke campaign finance law

By Issy Ronald, CNN

(CNN) — Police have launched a criminal investigation into the hard-right Reform UK party days after an explosive undercover report alleged they breached campaign finance laws by using foreign donors to pay for political polling.

The announcement follows an undercover sting broadcast by British news outlet Channel 4, which showed a reporter meeting with the party’s former head of policy James Orr and senior aide Dan Jukes and arranging for a US company to fund three polls commissioned by the party.

These polls were then reported by national newspapers who unknowingly characterized them as independent, helping to drive a key narrative before May’s local elections: that Reform is in the ascendancy and poses a genuine electoral threat to the governing center-left Labour Party and opposition center-right Conservatives.

A Reform UK spokesman told CNN the party “denies any wrongdoing and will cooperate fully with the investigation.”

The undercover reporter posed as the British son of a wealthy American who was willing to funnel money to Reform through his son, since foreign donations to political parties are prohibited under electoral law.

Jukes and Orr, who have both stepped down following the report, later arranged for the reporter and an actor posing as his wealthy father to meet the party’s leader Nigel Farage, a close ally of US President Donald Trump, to discuss a much larger donation which would originate from the US.

“Following a broadcast by Channel 4 News on Thursday, 3 September, the Met received a number of reports relating to donations and polling involving a political party,” a spokesperson for London’s Metropolitan Police told CNN.

“Detectives have assessed the information provided and determined that there are potential offences requiring investigation.”

This investigation will merge with a pre-existing investigation into other donations to the party, the Met added.

Reform has faced a drumbeat of allegations into its finances ever since the Guardian reported in April that Farage had accepted a £5 million donation from a Thai-based billionaire in 2024 that he did not disclose. It has heaped unprecedented political pressure onto Farage, who sought to regain the initiative by resigning from parliament and successfully standing for his seat again over the summer.

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