Inconvenient facts for Farage
Reform’s own involvement with “foreign voters”...
Nigel Farage, who insists he would never be racist, has adopted a new cause following his party’s loss at the Gorton and Denton by-election last week: withdrawing the franchise from brown people.
Rather than simply accepting the result of a democratic election, Farage has been channelling his Dulwich persona. Albeit, whereas he once reportedly harangued students of Indian descent for having the gall to attend his alma mater, Farage is now calling on non-UK citizens to be stripped off the electoral roll.
“Foreign-born voters stole by-election blasts Farage,” stated the front page of the Mail on Sunday – a newspaper owned by France-based non-dom Lord Rothermere.
The citizenship question isn’t exactly safe terrain for Farage, not least because his by-election candidate Matthew Goodwin has advocated a model of “Britishness” so restrictive that it would exclude even King Charles (I’m not joking).
It’s also an uncomfortable subject for Farage for several other reasons.
His own party accepts foreign members
That’s right. While Farage has been blowing a gasket about foreigners supposedly rigging our democracy, his party gratefully welcomes non-British members.
“Overseas residents are very welcome to join and receive full membership benefits,” Reform’s website states.
I suppose Farage doesn’t see a threat to democracy in accepting foreign members, because Reform is not a democracy. As leader, Farage still retains almost absolute power (alongside his chairman) to do whatever the hell he pleases. There is currently no way for the party’s MPs or members to call for a leadership contest, without the support of Reform’s board.
However, Reform is leading in the polls and could win the next election (though the odds are declining by the day). In this scenario, the party of government could well be brimming full of foreign members who would be allowed to vote on Farage’s replacement, should he ever relinquish his throne.
How exactly this is more democratic in Farage’s mind than allowing UK-based voters – albeit not fully-fledged citizens – to vote in UK elections, is anyone’s guess.
Farage has been tapping up foreign donors
Reform’s largest donor – the chap who’s basically propping up the party at this point – is Christopher Harborne, who’s based in Thailand.
Harborne seems to make a large amount of his money from the cryptocurrency firm Tether, which is headquartered in El Salvador.
Farage also recently went on a fundraising jaunt to Dubai, where he told a gathering of British tax exiles that they could donate to Reform via a loophole that lets UK companies fund political parties, even if their owners are based abroad.
He was also flown to Davos in January by Iranian-born billionaire Sasan Ghandehari, who’s linked to £200,000 in donations to the party.
Farage’s other donors include a Montenegro-based banker, a Nigerian-Lebanese tech billionaire, and his own treasurer Nick Candy, who’s in business with the UAE.
On this theme, who can forget the Brexit Party PayPal scandal, when Farage allowed donors from across the world to give their cash to Reform’s forerunner?
He’s happy for foreign billionaires to buy British democracy, but not for marginalised, maligned, working-class Muslims to choose their local representatives. And that, folks, is Nigel Farage in a nutshell.
As a lot of you already know, I’m currently conducting an investigation into the foreign influences on Farage and his party – with a view to producing a dossier with all the gory details.
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It seems a long three months since Nathan Gill, Reform’s former Welsh leader, was sentenced to 10 and a half years in prison for accepting bribes from a Russian agent.
“One of the best reporters of his generation.”
Thanks for sharing this Sam
Good work Sam once again.