Reform UK have been reported to the police after allegedly breaking rules by having polling paid for by an overseas company, it is understood.

Nigel Farage’s party took funding from a fake American firm for three polls it commissioned earlier this year costing £32,500, Channel 4 News reported.

But the donors were in fact undercover reporters from investigative group Verbatim posing as an American financier and his UK-based son ‘William Lockwood’.

James Orr, a senior adviser to Mr Farage, at a secretly recorded meeting in Claridge’s, tells ‘Lockwood’ the party is cash-strapped.

Asking for another poll to be paid for, he said: ‘Is anybody gonna find out? Am I gonna tell anyone… obviously not, so the reality is we could easily get away with it.’

He also joked that they could ‘literally do the old John Le Carré – you print it off, put it in a brown envelope, drop it off somewhere.’

In a meeting over oysters and wine in Clacton, Farage met with the fake father and son undercover team after the poll results appeared on the front of major newspapers.

‘Labour would face wipeout if elections went ahead’ and ‘Two thirds of voters want Starmer out’ were published in The Telegraph raising interest in Reform before the May elections.

While The Times published a poll ‘Reform vote in unions at same level as Labour’.

Farage said the polling was ‘amazing’ and provided ‘bang for buck,’ adding: ‘It worked. Boom.’

Foreign companies are not a permissible source of funding for parties, including for payments for studies and research, under electoral law.

The revelations by Channel 4 and Verbatim come amid ongoing scrutiny on funding both Mr Farage and his party have received.

The Reform leader faces a parliamentary investigation into whether he should have declared a £5 million gift from the crypto-billionaire Christopher Harborne given shortly before he was first elected to the Commons in 2024.

Labour Party chairwoman Bridget Phillipson said: ‘This scandal goes right to the top of Reform UK. Nigel Farage needs to urgently prove today that his top team haven’t broken the law and secretly plotted to undermine our democracy.

‘It’s not just Farage’s secret £5 million ‘gift’. Time and again he and his mates think the rules don’t apply to them. The sleaze and scandal now engulfing him and his party isn’t going away – it’s getting worse.

‘It’s time to stop the deflections and desperate excuses. Farage and Reform must co-operate with the authorities to establish the truth and prove just how deep this scandal goes.’

In a letter to the Met’s special enquiry team, Lib Dem Cabinet Office spokeswoman Lisa Smart wrote: ‘I am writing to report to your unit a potential serious breach of electoral law, involving the acceptance and concealment of a donation from an impermissible donor.

‘The breach raises alarming questions about whether there has been a wider complacency toward foreign interference by the individuals involved.’

Ms Smart said that James Orr facilitating the £32,500 donation from an impermissible donor would mark a breach of the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act.

She continued: ‘The funding appears to have been channelled into political spending on behalf of Reform UK, and therefore a donation in kind, in a manner apparently structured so as to avoid the payment being recorded and reported as a donation to the Electoral Commission. This would constitute a clear breach of section 61 of the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act.”

Reform, which is holding its party conference in Birmingham, said it had ‘been the target of a hoax perpetuated by foreign-funded, climate change activists posing as would-be party donors.

‘The party denies any wrongdoing.

‘Reform UK has a robust vetting process for prospective donors approved by the Electoral Commission.’

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