Wokingham MP Clive Jones has condemned Nigel Farage’s resignation earlier this week as an MP as a thinly veiled party-political broadcast designed to distract from an ongoing investigation into an undeclared £5 million donation.
Nigel Farage received the £5 million from Thailand-based British cryptocurrency investor Christopher Harborne. Farage has described the money as an “unconditional gift” that he can spend on expensive cars if he wants to.
Farage also described it as a bonus for getting Brexit over the line.
The parliamentary commissioner for standards, Daniel Greenberg, opened an investigation in May into whether Farage broke House of Commons rules by failing to declare the £5 million from Harborne.
That investigation is ongoing.
Clive Jones said Farage’s resignation speech contained several claims that were “out-right misleading of the public”.
Farage suggested he had been out of politics for several years before the last general election, despite having served as President of Reform UK and reform’s’ major shareholder throughout that period. This cannot be considered as being out of politics.
Farage also described Russian President Vladimir Putin as “dangerous”; despite having previously said Putin was the world leader he most admired, calling him “brilliant”.
Farage pointed to continuing small boat crossings, despite Brexit causing crossings to soar from the low hundreds to the tens of thousands.
Jones said: “This pathetic public tantrum from the leader of Reform UK is exactly the behaviour I would expect from his party.
“Farage is an absolute waste of taxpayer’s hard-earned money.
“It is a disgrace that Nigel Farage used his resignation as a means of misleading the public again and stoking the division his party has brought to this country.
“Farage has condemned Labour and the Conservatives for failed leader after failed leader – he has now done just that himself.
“He has slammed former leaders for lying to the British public – he has done just that himself, too.
“He says he loves being an MP, yet he is rarely in Clacton and has attended parliament just a handful of times in the last three months, seemingly more focused on cosying up to President Trump.
“Many people in Wokingham and around the country, like me, will be outraged that Farage threw this tantrum about getting caught out while dressing it up as standing up for his constituents.
“This is not the ‘people versus the establishment’ by-election he claims it to be. Farage has no interest in a better future for the British public, only in himself.
“The UK deserves better.”
