Nigel Farage spoke to Nick Ferrari on LBC from Birmingham:
“The party has broken no laws, not taken dodgy money or anything like that. It’s a clear case of entrapment, and they got a couple of our contractors to say things that perhaps should not have been said. They have been removed this morning. I’m not happy about it.
An independent third party commissioned a poll. It was helpful to Reform but we had nothing to do with it. There’s nothing illegal about it. Polling can be paid for by anybody providing it was put into the public domain.
There’s no question of illegality – I have a strong KC’s opinion on that. It was an independent third party. That is nothing.
Polls are funded by overseas people every single week.
I had no idea. The first time I saw was it was on the front page of The Times.
The issue is when they talked about putting money that might have come from America, that’s why. That clearly can’t be done under electoral law. It didn’t happen so no laws have been broken. We are going to investigate it. On the face of it, they said things that shouldn’t have been said.
I asked is this all above board, is it legal? I meet people all the time. We as a party have done nothing wrong. A few contractors have said things that shouldn’t have been said.
Labour can say what they like, but no, I promise you, the polling is not even an issue. Entrapped conversations don’t look good and that’s why we’ve taken the action we have.
We have not taken any illegal money of any kind. This is a massive sting operation.
These are not elected officials, but someone who has worked with me for many years, but never involved in fundraising. That’s why we’ve done what we’ve done. We will not be distracted by it.
We threaten the whole establishment ecosystem which has been in power for 100 years. They don’t want a new political party, a new set of faces coming in and taking over. No illegal transaction has occurred.”
Reform’s defence hardening…
UPDATE: Dan Jukes said: “This was entrapment over a prolonged period of nearly a year by foreign-funded climate change activists. I totally deny any wrongdoing but have stepped back from politics in order to clear my name.”
Former Treasury minister and adviser to Burnham in the Makerfield campaign Lord Jim O’Neill, who has turned down a role in his government, said Burnham’s first statement Commons was:
“The last thing investors wanted to hear… gilt yields have risen by a 0.25% in one day, which is a lot. We’ve not had that since Liz Truss days… If your country is under the focus of ‘can they come up with a sensible fiscal strategy’ on a day when the markets think ‘well no, you’re not showing any sign of it’ you’re going to have a tough day…if it stays like this your mortgage rate is going up.”