Nigel Farage, leader of the UK's Reform Party, is facing renewed questions about how he financed a £1.4 million house purchase after his party previously claimed the money came from his appearance on the TV show I'm A Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here!.
The Reform UK leader bought the home in Surrey in May 2024 without a mortgage, according to land registry documents. Last week, the party told the BBC that Farage used his six-figure fee from the reality show to fund the purchase. However, Farage had earlier told the Financial Times that the fee was paid to his company, Thorn In The Side Limited.
Now, company accounts for Thorn In The Side Limited show that its cash balance actually increased in the year following the purchase, with no dividends paid out. This has raised doubts about whether the TV fee was indeed used for the house, as the income appears to have remained within the company.
The controversy comes amid an ongoing investigation by the Parliamentary Standards Commissioner into a separate £5 million gift Farage received from crypto-billionaire Christopher Harborne in April 2024. Reform UK insists none of that gift was used for the house purchase, noting that anti-money laundering checks for the property were completed in March, before the gift was received.
Labour chair Anna Turley accused Farage of "dodging scrutiny" and called on him to provide evidence to back his claims. Conservative shadow minister Alex Burghart said the public would rightly question where the money came from if it wasn't from the TV appearance as claimed.
A spokesperson for Farage stated, "Nigel has multiple sources of income, as you can see from his parliamentary register."
The Parliamentary Standards Commissioner is already examining whether Farage breached rules by failing to declare the £5 million gift from Harborne, who has since become Reform UK's largest donor, giving the party £12 million in 2025.