Up next in 10
LBC's Henry Riley and Dr Sam Power joins James O'Brien as the Met Police investigate donations to Reform UK by a company controlled by the party's deputy leader Richard Tice.
Fundraising vehicle 'Britain Means Business' gave Reform two donations of £250,000 in the run-up to the 2024 general election.
The money was paid to his company by Reform donor Fiona Cottrell, Mr Tice has previously outlined.
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0:00
I am struggling, Henry Riley, to keep up with all of the investigations into his party's financing at the moment, including some which have emerged very recently
0:08
Yes, and I've done a breakdown to help you out, James. So firstly, we've got the more recent story
0:12
Reform are being investigated by the police into payments that were given to the party
0:18
This has been revealed by The Guardian newspaper, obviously the story first revealed
0:23
So this concerns two donations, both worth a quarter of a million pounds
0:28
They were made to Reform UK by Britain Means Business just before the 24 election
0:35
If you haven't heard of Britain Means Business, it has one director, and that is Richard Tice, who, of course, is the deputy leader of the party
0:44
So that's being looked at, but particularly because Fiona Cottrell, whose son you may have heard of, Posh George, as he's been nicknamed, he's a convicted fraudster
0:53
she made a £1 million transfer before this to Britain Means Business
0:59
shortly before the donations were made so there's an accusation that it's an indirect donation
1:04
but there are also direct donations because Fiona Cottrell has herself directly made two donations to the party
1:11
each worth a quarter of a million pounds separately so by my maths that's a million pounds in total
1:17
and well Britain Means Business and Fiona Cottrell There have been questions about how Fiona Cottrell has this level of money
1:26
I have to say those have not been answered by Fiona Cottrell. She was at one point a stylist, but we do not know much about her profession before that
1:32
The Met Police confirming, as reported in The Guardian, that two individuals were arrested, were not arrested, were interviewed
1:40
And the Reform UK say that they take pride in the stringent vetting of donations
1:45
And Richard Tye said the first he'd heard of it was the Met Police briefing the BBC
1:50
but Reform UK maintaining that they vet their donations clearly. So a million pounds transferred by a retired stylist
1:59
to a company owned by Richard Tice which subsequently donated half a million pounds to Reform UK
2:08
And she also, yes, and then also she also donated half a million pounds
2:12
to... separately. In her own name. In her own name. And her son, George
2:16
This is the anti-establishment aristocratic family that I keep reading about. Her son George is the convicted froster who reported he calls Nigel Farrow's daddy
2:24
Spent eight months in prison in Arizona. Tied to this, James, number two is that the Reform UK bank account
2:30
that's been revealed by the Sunday Times was frozen after the Cottrell donations
2:35
This is reporting by the paper that it could not make or receive payments
2:40
for two weeks during the 2024 election. It was frozen after they received donations The chairman at the time wrote to Abarthnot Latham who are the merchant bank Is it Latham Sorry I not an account holder
2:57
And they were complaining about that, but it also meant Reform UK had
3:02
received four payments, totaling £28,000 nearly, and they couldn't. They were impermissible because they come from
3:08
foreign donors. Reform said again that they take pride in the stringent vetting
3:11
of donations. And then aside from that, those are the two main ones, James, really
3:15
So a million pounds, Cottrell bank account frozen or reform bank account frozen after the Cottrell allegations
3:22
The other two, just quickly, Nigel Farage, the five million pound gift that you may have heard about
3:27
that was reported to the National Crime Agency over money laundering concerns
3:32
Reform UK again saying Nigel Farage has said he's done nothing wrong
3:36
There was the standards probe into Nigel Farage. That, of course, has been paused because he's no longer an MP
3:41
and then Nigel Farage also separately with regards to George Cottrell paying for his security
3:47
and it said content creators Nigel Farage saying he's done nothing wrong there as well but there's no
3:53
active investigation into that So that's five Four, five, five Five investigation, gosh
4:00
Stay with us because I'm just going to have a quick word with Dr Sam Power who is a lecturer
4:05
in politics at the University of Bristol and an expert in political
4:09
financing and electoral regulation. Sam, thank you for your time. Is it, I mean, normal is an odd word to use
4:16
Is there a precedent for major political parties having their bank accounts frozen
4:22
So as far as I can tell, no, is the short answer. I was racking my brains when I was asked about this
4:28
on Sunday when the Times story broke. And the only equivalent example I can think of
4:34
is the British National Party in 2004 were effectively debanked, to use a phrase, by Barclays
4:42
after some pretty horrific undercover reporting was outed of some pretty horrific things that they were saying
4:49
But that was a bank's decision to effectively absent themselves from being involved with the political party
4:55
Never has, as far as I can understand, a bank account been frozen as a result of a National Crime Agency investigation
5:03
You may have answered my next question, in which case, just to channel the spirit of the late Donald Rumsfeld, in the context of unknown unknowns, we know that they're not, I don't think there's a parallel with the BNP example that you provide
5:17
I mean, what other grounds might there be for a political party's bank account to be frozen in this way
5:24
So I suppose what we can go of is the Guardian's initial reporting of the suspicious activity request that was set
5:33
which I think we understand led to the freezing of the bank account for that two period And the quote from the National Crime Agency about suspicious activity requests more generally is that these quite often happen
5:49
when there is knowledge or suspicion of money laundering. Now, again, it's not necessarily the case
5:56
that this money was that, but quite often they come in when there is knowledge or suspicion of that
6:03
That is not, to be clear, proof of a crime, proof of money laundering but quite often I think suspicious activity requests do what they say on
6:11
the tin really there is a big amount of money that is being transferred from one place to another
6:17
and there's some suspicious activity sort of going on or potential suspicious activity
6:23
so they freeze the source of that money or freeze the provenance just for a minute to check out
6:28
what's going on and for not just the benefit of my listeners but also for me how does a national
6:34
crime agency investigation differ from a metropolitan police investigation? Well, it's actually sort of two different investigations that are happening. National
6:43
Crime Agency is investigating the provenance of the funds and the potential perhaps money laundering
6:49
behind it. What the police are investigating is electoral law, specifically what the provenance
6:56
of these donations and very specifically they're looking at and they're looking at whether the
7:02
provenance of these donations was hidden in any way whether the true source of the donor
7:07
was indeed Britain Means Business and was indeed Fiona Cottrell. And who is accountable if donations
7:14
are found to be impermissible? I mean obviously the person who gives the money is ultimately
7:22
responsible for the donation but how accountable is the recipient of the money if it turns out
7:28
And we should stress that reform, and I quote, takes pride in its stringent vetting of donations and always ensures that the Electoral Commission guidelines on donations are set out in the political parties elections and referendums act 2000 are strictly followed and has been as has been the case with donations so far
7:45
But in the spirit of asking questions, how accountable is the recipient of an input of a donation that is found to have been impermissible
7:55
so the the legal requirement almost entirely sorry the legal onus i suppose almost entirely
8:02
falls on the donor as opposed to the donee in these instances so i mean basically the political
8:10
party any political party on receipt of any donation um that they have to conduct permissibility
8:16
requirements on i mean as far as i understand it basically has to eyeball the donation and the
8:22
donor and say, is this person permissible? Yes, they are. We have conducted our permissibility requirements The interesting thing in this instance is that been quite a useful insulator for political parties in the past because you have these donations You can say you done your permissibility requirements and anything that goes on behind the scenes of that donation is actually you done your bit
8:45
And that then falls on the donor. What's interesting in the reform case is that reform more than any other political party have their donor base kind of stitched into the party in and of itself
8:57
So they sort of lose that useful sense of insulation from these things
9:03
So when we think about Britain Means Business, which is effectively Richard Tice's organisation, who is a reform MP
9:10
you've immediately lost the insulation from donor to donee, as it were
9:15
And when the donor becomes the donee, that can become much more tricky for you
9:20
I understand all of that, which is a credit to your clarity, Dr Sam Power. Thank you
9:25
Does the Met want to be involved? Well, in your opinion, does the Met want to be expending time and energy investigating political donations
9:34
To the best of my knowledge, as someone that is not a metropolitan police in the Metropolitan Police, no, is again the short answer
9:44
You know, I don't think many people get involved in policing to pursue elections law
9:51
Frankly, only particularly nerdy people like me really get involved in that kind of thing
9:56
and we probably wouldn't pass the policing tests. And there's also a serious reason is that police really, really don't want to be involved
10:03
in anything particularly political. But they are involved in this, and I think it's the Special Inquiry Team
10:09
which is actually a pretty significant body that are looking into this now
10:13
But as a rule of thumb, the Metropolitan Police do say to parliamentary inquiries when they're asked about this, is there anybody else that could do this job for us because we don't really want it
10:23
I see. Is there anything else we should know? Well, I think, you know, there's lots of interesting things in this case. Henry's done a brilliant job of setting them out
10:34
Let's not get carried away. I what I would say is that at least in the case of the Christopher Harbourn donation what I noticed
10:42
over the weekend is or gift whatever you want to call it and is that it seems at least a little
10:48
bit to me that Nigel Farage is softening his stance on whether he ought to have declared that
10:54
gift because in an interview over the weekend he did say effectively well maybe I didn't fill in a
11:00
piece of paper is if that's the worst thing I do I've ever done then then sue me essentially
11:05
so it does seem like at the very least in the Christopher Harbourn case Nigel Farage is
11:11
softening his stance as to whether he ought to have declared it and some people would say that
11:16
the calling of the by-election in the first place was an admission of that because the
11:21
ultimate punishment was probably going to be a by-election anyway
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