Nigel Farage v Count Binface

0:00This is The Guardian.

0:09Today, Nigel Farage versus Count Binface.

0:27One minute afternoon on Tuesday, Nigel Farage posted a cryptic message on social media.

0:33Ben Quinn:Saying simply, I will make a statement on my future in public life at 2pm. Just after 2pm, he appeared, slightly harassed, on Reform's YouTube channel. Good afternoon, everybody. Two years ago, after several years... Flanked by two Union Jacks, the Towers of Westminster and the London Eye in the background, he spent the first 14 minutes complaining. So yes, you can ask, am I angry? Well, I've never been angrier in my life. Then, finally, came the big announcement. I've thought about it hard and I've decided today, today I will resign as a Member of Parliament for Clacton-on-Sea, thereby forcing a by-election.

1:19It was, he said, a people versus the establishment by-election. Only, the establishment isn't playing.

1:26Ben Quinn:We're not standing a candidate in the fake by-election, which Nigel Farage... You know, I think that's certainly going to be one of the options on the table because, you know, why should we all dance to Farage's tune? The party have decided as a whole, all of us, that we won't be standing a candidate in the by-election. You won't be? We won't be standing a candidate. The other party's a chicken, suggested one of his closest lieutenants on GB News. Let's start with your reaction. Can you hear the chickens and the cowards clucking away, honestly? I mean, these people.

2:01But why did Farage really step down? And could it backfire? From The Guardian, I'm Helen Pidd. Today in Focus, Farage's latest gamble.

2:17Ben Quinn, welcome back to Today in Focus. I say welcome because actually this is the second time we've talked this week, isn't it? It is. We're having a second call because things are moving so swiftly this week. Yeah, and so you are a political correspondent of The Guardian. And we had a lovely plan, didn't we, that this week we were going to put out an episode looking at whether Reform UK, Farage's party, had peaked. And that episode will sadly remain on the cutting room floor now because it's just been overtaken so comprehensively by events. And can we just start by you telling me, you have followed Farage around for years.

2:51Were you surprised at the stunt you pulled on Tuesday? Yes and no. In some ways it was unexpected. You just don't expect an MP to step aside like this. And we're talking about someone who's spent their entire career trying to get elected to Parliament. But at the same time, it was also classic Farage, this sort of a rabbit out of the hat and to try and distract, distort and also take the initiative again. We'll talk in a bit about the tactics behind his resignation. But can we just start by recapping the various scandals that have been swirling around Farage in recent months? And the main two involve two very rich men.

3:29Can you tell me about them? So the pressure in Isil Farage's been under really relates to a£5 million payment which was made to him, a gift which was given to him and which The Guardian revealed, which he did not declare. And that came from Christopher Harbour, who's a Thai-based crypto billionaire and a donor to reform.

3:48Ben Quinn:Quite a bit of breaking news to bring you. It confounds the leader of Reform UK. I understand that Nigel Farage is now facing an investigation by the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards, Daniel Greenberg. He was asked to investigate a couple of weeks ago after news about the gift, as Reform UK would have termed it, from Christopher Harbourn. Secondly, the other individual is someone who has been at Nigel Farage's side for many, many years, George Cottrell, a.k.a. Posh George, a young publicly school educated minor aristocrat who, you know, variously has been described as Nigel Farage's bag man and, you know, his advisor in so many matters.

4:29Yeah. And George Cottrell is a very interesting character for a number of reasons. He has said that he calls Farage daddy. They're so close. And the most important thing to know about George Cottrell is that he's a convicted criminal, isn't he? He and Farage, just after the Brexit referendum in 2016, were on a plane in the US when he was arrested as he got off the plane. And then he spent a number of months in a federal prison, didn't he? What did he do? I believe the US term is wire fraud. He was detained by the authorities, the FBI were involved, and he did serve time. George Cottrell faced 20 years in jail for 21 counts relating to money laundering, fraud, blackmail and extortion.

5:09But he eventually brokered a plea deal. He admitted guilt to a charge of wire fraud and he ended up serving just eight months in prison. reportedly some sort of deal was done and he's now back in the UK and by all kinds actually angling maybe for a pardon which would allow him to go back to the US but he's someone who hasn't been shy about actually talking on his own terms about his wrongdoing he's co-authored a book with someone else literally called How to Launder Money and in that he talked about that episode as well. And of course, being friends with a convicted criminal is not an offence.

5:46What is he alleged to have provided Farage with? Why is it a problem, potentially? There's been a lot of rumours and a lot of lines of inquiry, which multiple people have been investigating in relation to Cottrell. But the Sunday Times really moved things on at the weekend, which has just passed with a report where they drew together a lot of these threads.

6:04Ben Quinn:So in the summer of 2023, we know that Cottrell recruited staff and security for Farage. Also that he was allowing him to make use of his five-story townhouse, just a stone's throw from Westminster. I think that there's definitely a case that these rules have been broken. So this is support which Cottrell has reportedly been providing. And the key thing is Nigel Farage did not declare this support from George Cottrell in the way that he apparently did not declare the gift from Christopher Harbourn as well. And Ford has changed his story somewhat on that gift from Christopher Harbourn. He seemed to suggest that it was a reward for his campaigning on Brexit.

6:43He's now saying that it was for his personal security, but that he didn't need to declare it because he wasn't an MP at the time. It was a few months before he became an MP. And he says similar to explain the gifts from George Cottrell too. But I guess it's not just the fact that he's accepted these gifts and not declared them right. But there's also the question of whether they, these two rich guys, may get anything in return when it comes particularly to their interesting cryptocurrency. Because Cottrell was big into crypto as well, wasn't he? We in The Guardian reported that Farage was trying to block, for example, a Bank of England cryptocurrency plan that could be costly for Harbour and for the billionaire who was bankrolling reform.

7:23Yeah, and I think more generally, Farage has been a very enthusiastic proponent for crypto over the years. He would say, well, I think it's the future and it's completely irrelevant. And Harbour and Andy Cottrell have always just suggested that their support had no strings attached. Up until this week, how much do you think Farage was at risk of losing the narrative? How precarious a moment was all of this becoming for him? Well, it was becoming really precarious because he has essentially not been seen in public very much. And he hasn't been given these press conferences, which we in the media were pretty much used to every week.

8:01he'd come and take questions he's the man that will take all the questions from everyone and all of a sudden just in recent months there's been this shift where he addresses the voters he addresses everybody else mainly through these sort of video statements which are put out on reform social media channels so he's on the run it would seem and he's reluctant to take questions about the five million pound gift from harbour and it has also created the image that he's not really a man of the people. Again, that this is a person who is in league with the elite. You know, even when he was questioned about the£5 million from Harbour, he's become very ratty in at least one radio interview.

8:39It's an unconditional gift. I can spend it on Ferraris if I want. They'd be entirely up to me. Why did you say it was for personal security then? Because it was given as an unconditional gift. That's not exactly the kind of thing you want to be saying if you're the leader of an insurgent party of the people. Yeah, and you even had somebody like Dr David Ball, who at least at some point has been the chair of Reform UK, saying, I think Nigel needs to have a bit of a rest. The other thing I would say to him as a friend and a colleague is he needs to take some time out and have a bit of a break. Really?

9:11I mean, that's the kind of talk you would not have heard a couple of months ago. And you speak to a lot of Reform members, a lot of Reform officials. Before Tuesday, how united a party was it behind Farage? I've really quite united. The thing about Nigel Farage-led enterprises is that they always do seem to fall apart under some sort of divisions and people fall out with them, they leave. You know, there's this long list of people from Rupert Lowe through to Ben Habib and many others. So one of the things Nigel Farage said at the close of one of their most recent big events last year where lots of members were there was, please keep your divisions amongst yourself let's try not to have our arguments in public but try as they may this sort of stuff just does come out and clearly we can see from some of the shall we say discussions that we are aware of among reform members at a grassroots level they're worried they feel that the five million pound gift is cutting through they don't like how it looks and they're not really happy with how it's been dealt with and then you have at the very top of reform, clearly very ambitious people like Richard Tice, who used to be a leader of reform before he had to step aside to allow Farage to come back.

10:22And then you have someone like Sue-Ellip Rotherman and also Robert Jenrick, both who left, struck, were chucked out of the Tories because of their own conspiracies and their own machinations to take over that party. And now they find themselves in reform. So not a very happy ship in a lot of ways.

10:52And you know, that Christopher Harbourn story, that£5 million, it's just not going away. He's been asked about it many, many times in his increasingly rare public appearances. And even on Tuesday, the day that he gave his address, gave his statement, Our colleague Anna Isaacs published a story. Anna, of course, was the one who broke the Harbourn story in the first place. But she wrote that some bankers had reported Harbourn's five million donation to the National Crime Agency over concerns of money laundering. We should say that Farage has said that he has no reason to doubt the ultimate source of the money.

11:27But on the statement itself, for those of us who are not glued to the live stream, how did he justify his decision to quit as an MP and stand in a by-election? No, I've decided that the people of Clapton should be the judges of my actions. This will be a people versus the establishment by-election. He presents this by-election as a people versus the establishment. This was Nigel Farage going beyond the parliamentary authorities who are scrutinising him and going directly to the people, to the ultimate arbiters of whether people are fit to be MPs or not. It's a chance to stick two fingers up to the entire establishment, to frankly tell them where to go.

12:10And in this speech, he talked quite a lot, didn't he, about media intrusion, particularly involving his daughter. What did he say and how justified do you think he was in the allegations that he was making? So he made a number of allegations. He said that there were things which people were unaware of. For example, he said there had been an event at a pub where a, quote, mob came in and he had to leave with his family. His car, he says, was written off. He says he chose not to sort of pursue that at the time because he didn't want to draw attention to it. And then he made various allegations about what he said was the harassment of his daughter, who he said is someone he's never brought into the public domain.

12:51Let me be clear. I will not tolerate intimidation of my family. I will not tolerate the location of where they live being revealed. I will not tolerate any of my family being endangered because of what I choose to do in public life. And yeah, he was particularly unhappy, wasn't he, about a photograph that was published in the Times of his daughter's house. But it's probably worth saying that this is a house that he's owned for quite a long time. There was a Tory MP who pointed out on X he had dug up a number of photos that Farage himself had posed for outside this house. in which the house name or number was not pixelated.

13:31And so much of the speech was actually, it seemed to me, him justifying his ever-growing bank balance. And he said that the£5 million gift from Harbourn was just like winning the lottery. And he made a big thing about Labour having no successful business people in the Labour cabinet. Let's interrogate a bit Farage's claim to be a successful businessman. How much of his money would you say is the fruits of his labour as a business person rather than the result of him exploiting his position as a politician and the public profile that comes with that? Yeah, I mean, he said that he had to leave behind what was going to be a lucrative career in the city, and he was a metals trader.

14:15And he says he's made very little money since then because he had to essentially sacrifice this career. This is more than 30 years ago, let's be fair. It's a long time ago, isn't it? Yes. And in the interim, he's earned millions of euros as a parliamentarian in the European Parliament and now draws his MP salary. Yeah, he says he essentially had to sacrifice his career in the best interests of the British people. And he had this list of things which he's been able to do since then. He said he's been an influencer. He said he's promoted various products, you know, namely gold. What about hooking up with direct bullying?

14:44Well, let me tell you, one thing, an old fashioned service. You can actually talk to people on the telephone. And he says people have done all right, those who followed him into it. He has earned£270 ,000 for that, the single biggest payment he's registered since becoming an MP. So he feels that he has a right to make this money because it's money that he hasn't actually been able to make and would otherwise have made. And there's been a lot of lucrative speaking engagements in the US where he's been sought after principally because of his political role as well. So it's been the political role which has made him a figure in demand.

15:18And I mean, that's even before we get to all the cameo videos he's been recording where, you know, pay him a few quid and he'll say up the IRA. And he said that this by-election is going to be him versus the establishment. And yet all the other parties, if you consider them to be the establishment, have said that they're not playing. How did they explain their decision, their rationale behind not getting involved in this by-election? And do you think that Farage will be disappointed? I think he might be surprised that this has happened. And Reform's Home Affairs spokesperson, Zia Yusuf, did say that, you know, it's something that they had gamed.

15:52But you do get the impression they've been taken by surprise. Rupert Lowe's Restore Britain, the hard right party, which is set up in opposition to Reform, were kind of first out of the traps very early on Tuesday after Farage said he was triggering the by-election to say they wouldn't be dancing to Farage's tune, as it were, and wouldn't be standing. And then that was followed by the Lib Dems and the Tories.

16:15Ben Quinn:I mean, what I saw was a man who was cracking under the pressure. He went on telly having a hissy fit because for the first time he is finally having to face some scrutiny after a very long honeymoon and he cannot handle it. Kimmy Bednock said she would be eager for a Tory candidate to stand in the second by-election, as she put it, the one that could be triggered if the standards authorities do then find against Nyssal Farage and he has to face a recall by-election. And then we had Labour shortly after that. Then we had the Greens. For a little while, it did look like it could be a populist versus populist by-election in Clacton.

16:50Perhaps the Greens would go for it. But they've obviously had a lot of discussions about it and if, for whatever reason, the optics. and one thing they would act even for them, they're not going for it. So it's really just at the moment set up as a sort of a standoff between Farage and Count Binface. Yeah, exactly. I'm sure he'll hate to be called a novelty candidate, but that's how other people describe him, although he's got pretty serious policies. So I'm assuming from that that you are going to be sparse when it comes to policy promises. How dare you? I've got a full and costed manifesto, Justin.

17:23I mean, some of my national policies will remain. I pledge to build at least one affordable house. I will nationalise Adele and I'll make water bosses have to take a dip in British rivers to see how they like it. I'll price cap 99 flakes at 99 pence. And just actually, as we were about to speak, Helen, a message came through to say the writ has been moved on that by-election. So it's game on there between Cunt Binface and Farage. Yeah. And what is the point of a by-election if your main opponent is a man with a bin on his head? Yeah, so the point is for Farage to show that he's a man of the people.

17:59The point is to romp home with a massive majority, or that would have been the original aim. But as it were, now, can you actually foresee a situation where all those Tory voters, all the Labour voters, all the people to the left of all of those parties and even maybe disillusioned former Farage voters now either decide to stay at home or actually to vote for Count Bin Fais? and what will turnite be like will be pretty low. And then the issue of the cost, I mean, it's going to be quite costly. It's around a quarter of a million pounds, isn't it? Something like that at least to run a by-election.

18:34Yeah, and reformers have said they will pay for that again. But the optics of it are really quite skewed now. But the awkward thing is if this does come to it then, and it looks like it will, on the night of the by-election result, you're going to have on stage at Tendring District Council, Nigel Farage with his turquoise rosette on and a man wearing a bin standing beside him. And for all we know, maybe half a dozen people in minion costumes as well, who are also running. Yeah, a few other attention seekers will probably throw their hat in the ring, as they did when David Davies, the Tory MP, resigned and then stood in his own by-election back in 2008.

19:14And in terms of the investigations into him that the Parliamentary Standards Commissioner is carrying out, Am I right in understanding that basically he just sort of presses pause on those while Farage is not an MP? And then he'll just carry them on as soon as, if as expected, Farage wins this by-election. Yeah, that's right. So the investigation is suspended during the by-election and then it just can start up again. I think what reform are banking on is that when that finding comes along, that MPs will not want to, on their committee, do anything to initiate another by-election and put the people of Clacton through yet another by-election.

19:52And reform are banking on the people of Clacton being fed up towards those MPs rather than being fed up with reform and Farage for having triggered this first by-election. Yeah, I feel quite sorry for voters in that constituency in particular, because they've been through this before, haven't they? Back in 2014, the constituency had a different name in those days, but it was essentially the same. They had a Tory MP called Douglas Carswell, who defected to UKIP. And he did what he said was the honourable thing, which was that he called a by-election so that the electorate could decide if they wanted a UKIP MP, and they did indeed choose him.

20:25And then ever since July 2024, Clacton has been the backdrop to the Nigel Farage show. So, I mean, he's got a lot of fans there still, hasn't he? But there might be a lot of people thinking, oh, come on. Yeah. And again, you know, some place like Clacton is a place which is one where people also do feel forgotten about. They've got local issues. There's a hospital which people are eager for unfinished business to be done there. And you've got areas of massive deprivation like the Jaywick Ward in Clacton. And it's a place where there's a lot of local issues. The demographic is one which is slightly older and poorer than London, certainly.

21:02And it's one thing to be a place which is in the national spotlight, but it's another thing in your day-to-day life, feeling that you're not being looked after in terms of those slightly more banal things which are absolutely necessary in everyone's life. Coming up, is there a risk that Farage just ends up looking a bit daft?

21:38England are still in the USA and so are we. Join me, Max Rushton, and a host of football experts as we overanalyse every game every day at the World Cup, including England's forthcoming quarterfinal against Norway. It's Haaland versus Gaye, it's Herring versus Cod, it's Vikings versus agonising, tragic failure. The Guardian's World Cup Daily, available wherever you get your podcasts. And you said that Farage will probably be a bit disappointed that the other parties have said that they're not going to contest the by-election. But he loves campaigning. Do you think that he'll be happy taking maybe a little bit of the spotlight away from the first six weeks of Andy Burnham's premiership?