The MP for Kingston and Surbiton, Sir Ed Davey, has asked the police and Electoral Commission to investigate Reform UK after Channel 4 News last week released undercover footage of Nigel Farage and other senior party members celebrating secret new foreign donations.

The footage reveals a plot to break the law on party funding at the highest levels of Reform UK.

Speaking about the news, Sir Ed said: "If Reform blatantly, intentionally, and knowingly broke

Election law, that's a serious criminal offence if proven.

"We have written to both the Electoral Commission and the police to ask them to investigate. And if Reform is found guilty, these top advisors to Nigel Farage, and Nigel Farage himself, hopefully will face the full force of the law.

The Lib Dem leader added: "This is serious. If Reform blatantly, intentionally and knowingly broke election law, they should be held fully accountable.

"Liberal Democrats have asked the Police and the Electoral Commission to investigate."

Earlier this year James Orr, the party's Head of Policy, and Dan Jukes, a close aide to Mr Farage, arranged for a US company to fund three influential polls that the party had commissioned.

Results from these seemingly independent polls made headline news and two of them helped galvanise support for the party ahead of the local elections in May.



But the public was not told that Reform UK had commissioned the polls and would be arranging for an "off the book" backer to fund them. The three polls cost £32,500 in total.

Mr Orr and Mr Jukes did not know that the supposed donors behind the US company were actually an undercover team posing as a wealthy American and his UK-based son, "William Lockwood".

In a meeting over oysters and wine in his Clacton constituency, Mr Farage met with the undercover team in late July after the three polls had been published and paid for.

He believed them to be "William" and his father. Mr Farage said the polling was "amazing" and provided "bang for buck," adding: "It worked. Boom."

When discussion turned to a potential larger donation to Reform UK one of the undercover team made clear that the plan would be for the UK-based son to make the payment and be the declared donor even though the money was originally coming from the US-based father.

Such an arrangement - which was first proposed by Mr Jukes at an earlier meeting - would be illegal.

Mr Farage replied "thank you" and then "both of you, thank you."

When the UK-based son had started talking about the "next phase" of their financial support, Mr Farage also said "it's all above board".

The undercover reporter had previously told Mr Farage's aides that the potential future donation would be for £500,000.

At the time Mr Farage and his party were already facing intense scrutiny over their finances and fighting a by-election following allegations of secret funding, which Mr Farage has always denied was illegal.

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