Nigel Farage’s silence implies guilt amid probe into £5m gift, Ed Davey claims
Nigel Farage’s “disappearance” from the public eye this week “implies guilt” amid a parliamentary investigation into a £5 million personal gift shortly before announcing he would stand as an MP, the Liberal Democrats leader has said.
Sir Ed Davey said the Reform UK leader’s “silence” suggested “he might realise he might get thrown out” of the Commons as Westminster’s standards watchdog probes whether he broke rules by not declaring the money following the 2024 election.
But a Reform spokesman said Mr Farage would be appearing on camera later on Wednesday and had addressed the “non-issue” previously.
The Clacton MP was reported last week to have bought a £1.4 million house in May that year, shortly after receiving the gift from Thai-based crypto-billionaire Christopher Harborne.
He has insisted the gift was unconnected with the property purchase, which a party spokesman said had been paid for with his fee from appearing on ITV’s I’m A Celebrity… Get Me Out Of Here in 2023.
He has also said the money was given on an unconditional basis.
Asked what he made of the Reform UK leader’s sudden quietness, Sir Ed told reporters in Westminster on Wednesday: “The fact that Nigel Farage – he’s never been afraid of getting in front of the camera before, has he? Has now disappeared, suggests that he might realise he’s guilty, he might realise that he has committed an offence, and that he might get thrown out by Parliament.
“Let the investigation judge – that the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards is going to look at this quite rightly, but his silence suggests and implies guilt.”
A Reform source told the Press Association: “Obsessive Ed needs to talk about Nigel to stay relevant. Poor guy.”
A party spokesman has since said: “Nigel has spoken many times on camera about this non issue, and he will again today.”
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To be fair – His silence implies his sense of privilaged indifference – but I’m sure we can all infer the fact that he’s lying… again
I think he will be recalled. The question is whether the electors of Clacton will trust him enough to let him have the seat back.
A by-election with all the additional scrutiny will be very interesting and even if he does win it’ll be a massive headache for him.
I bet if it was any other politician involved other than himself you wouldn’t be able to get him away from the camera.
The default response of Reform when it comes to difficult questions is always silence.
Keep digging in there. When people said they were voting for Boris, i thought no, there will be a different name on the ballot paper but voting for Nige is exactly that with a mere conduit name on a ballot paper. If he can be thrown out, kept out and deposed as an MP also, his entire hate mob will descend into a UKIP farce and fall apart. Head off snake, snake dies.
Nige always runs away when the solids are inbound. No fanfare for his contender to Burnham, a press release. Normally the friendly press are invited in for a show and tell, not this time.
Always scared of questions in an arena he cannot control, get starts to shout and babble nonsense. Right out of trumps playbook.
Ah, they should send out the new chairperson of Reform to explain this. 30p
This is what the far right do when they are exposed. They slither away and hide under the nearest rock until they can think of more hate filled bile to spout. And by the way I’m no fan of the Lib Dems but don’t they have over 70 seats whereas Reform have 6.
Yes but keep an eye on the 100 plus blue bench shufflers moving towards them.
Silence may have actually been the better option, as he’s now given three different reasons for the £5,000,000 “gift”.
That we know about. Of course why does gbeebies pay him so much.
“The charlatan is always the pioneer… The quack of yesterday is the professor of tomorrow.” – Arthur Conan Doyle