Nigel Farage and Reform UK are facing fresh scrutiny after party figures were filmed in an undercover sting allegedly welcoming secret foreign donations which may have breached electoral law.

The sting has prompted the resignation of two senior Reform figures, Dan Jukes and James Orr, and complaints to the police and regulator the Electoral Commission.

It also raises fresh questions over what Farage knew about the proposed funding and whether the party’s financial arrangements have complied with the law.

Reform has denied wrongdoing and dismissed the allegations as a politically motivated attack.

However, there are now two separate rows over foreign money engulfing Reform figures.

The other relates to Robert Jenrick’s 2024 Tory leadership bid before he defected to Farage’s party.

Both centre on the same allegation: that a political operation took money it knew, or was warned, originated overseas, and then constructed a scenario so that a UK-based named individual appeared as the donor on official records.

Here’s what’s alleged in each case, and where they intersect.

The law

UK electoral law bars political parties and campaigns from accepting donations from foreign sources. Under the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act, only “permissible donors” – UK-registered voters, UK-registered companies trading in Britain, and similar – can give money.

Both the recipient and the donor carry legal obligations: the recipient must check where money has come from, and the donor must not disguise foreign cash as domestic.

Both cases under scrutiny appear to involve the same alleged modus operandi – money moving from an overseas source through, or via, a UK-based intermediary who becomes the declared donor.

The Jenrick case

As exclusively revealed by The i Paper, Jenrick’s 2024 Tory leadership campaign is under police investigation over a £100,000 donation from British entrepreneur Phillip Ullmann, made via a company called Spott Fitness.

The allegation is that £37,500 of that sum actually came from American businessman Gary Klopfenstein – an associate of Ullmann’s – who has since been convicted of fraud in the US in a case unrelated to the donation. Ullmann and Klopfenstein are now locked in a separate legal dispute with each other.

The allegations relate to Jenrick’s 2024 campaign to replace Rishi Sunak as Tory leader. He subsequently defected from the party and joined Reform, where he is Treasury spokesperson and would be a candidate to become chancellor if Reform was to be in government.

Ullmann claims he repeatedly warned that some of the money was being supplied by Klopfenstein, according to legal correspondence. Jenrick disputes this and has always denied breaching electoral laws, branding the allegations a political “smear”.

The Electoral Commission referred the case to the Metropolitan Police on 6 January 2026. The Met has since confirmed it has opened a formal investigation, and the Electoral Commission’s own inquiry is paused pending the outcome of the police probe. No individual has been named as a suspect and while an investigation has been launched, it may still result in no arrests or charges.

The Channel 4 sting

The second case broke on the eve of Reform’s party conference on Thursday, when and an investigative outfit called aired undercover footage of senior Reform figures – including Nigel Farage, his aide Dan Jukes and the party’s former head of policy James Orr – which appeared to show them discussing donations from a supposed wealthy American and his UK-based son.

The footage shows Reform aides arranging for a US company to fund three opinion polls commissioned by the party earlier in the year, at a cost of roughly £32,500 – polls that helped drive headlines ahead of May’s local elections without the public being told Reform had commissioned them, or how they were funded.

When talk turned to a larger, six-figure donation, one of the undercover team reportedly proposed that the UK-based “son” would be the person who formally handed over the money and be recorded as the official donor, even though the funds would originate from his American father. Orr appears to tell the undercover reporters: “The reality is we could easily get away with it if we wanted to.”

Farage was separately filmed praising the polling arrangement, telling the undercover pair it had “worked” and provided “bang for buck”. Reform has dismissed the whole operation as a “hoax” carried out by “foreign-funded, climate change activists posing as would-be party donors”, pointing out that has links to Greenpeace campaigner Lawrence Carter and the Centre for Climate Reporting. The party maintains it has not done anything illegal and that it has a “robust vetting process for prospective donors”.

Jukes has complained that he is a victim of “entrapment”.

The Liberal Democrats and Labour have both said they will report the matter to police, and a former Electoral Commission chief executive has told the evidence points to possible criminal offences.

Where the two cases are similar

Both rest on the same alleged scenario: an overseas backer’s money routed through, or attributed to, a UK-based individual so it can be declared as a domestic – and therefore permissible – donation. In the Jenrick case, Ullmann – a British businessman – is the named donor, while Klopfenstein – the US businessman – is alleged to be the true source of part of the money.

In the Reform sting, the plan discussed on camera was for the undercover reporter posing as the UK-based “son” to be the declared donor while the money actually came from his American “father.” Critics and complainants in both cases argue this is precisely the kind of layering the law is designed to catch – using a permissible UK name as a conduit to launder an impermissible foreign source onto the books.

The bigger picture

Both episodes come amid broader scrutiny of Reform’s finances. Farage is already the subject of a parliamentary standards inquiry over an undeclared £5m gift from British-born, Thailand-based crypto entrepreneur Christopher Harborne, which Farage says was a personal gift for security costs received before he became an MP and therefore didn’t need declaring. Deputy leader Richard Tice has faced National Crime Agency scrutiny over payments to companies he controls. Farage’s close ally George Cottrell and his mother Fiona Cottrell are also at the centre of a police investigation into money donated to the party.

Reform has already slipped in the polls following scrutiny over the party’s finances and the arrival of new Labour Prime Minister Andy Burnham. Investigations into the Reform’s finances threaten to distract from the party’s bid to get an election footing and ultimately see Farage enter No 10.