Britain’s equivalent of the FBI has launched an investigation into itself after financial details of members of Nigel Farage’s Reform UK party were leaked to the press.
Following accusations of illegally leaking banking information relating to Reform UK, including transactions involving deputy leader Richard Tice, the National Crime Agency (NCA) said on Friday that it has referred itself to the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) for investigation, The Telegraph reported.
Earlier this month, a report from the Sunday Times accused Reform leader Nigel Farage of having failed to publicly declare financial support from longtime ally George Cottrell in the year leading up to the 2024 snap election, during which Mr Farage was mostly retired from frontline politics. While the party has denied that Farge broke any rules, questions have been raised, given Cottrell’s previous conviction for wire fraud in the United States and the alleged failure of Reform to declare the donations to the parliament.
Additionally, The Guardian revealed that Cottrell had also provided a brief loan of £80,000 to Tisun Investments, the real estate firm owned by Reform MP Richard Tice. Cottrell’s mother was also revealed to have donated £1 million to Tice’s think tank Britain Means Business, of which half was donated to Reform by Tice.
The transactions were reported flagged to the NCA under its suspicious activity report (SAR) scheme, which requires banks to flag large transactions.
However, Mr Tice said he was only made aware that the transactions had been flagged after he was approached by journalists from The Guardian, who also knew of other transactions from different bank accounts. He claims they would have been able to access such information only through leaks from the National Crime Agency.
Commenting on the investigation into the agency, Mr Tice said: “This is the first considered response from the NCA and it indicates they clearly have a problem and they are begging for more time before we serve the court papers.
“Now that we have finally got a response, it shouldn’t be that difficult to work out whether someone has accessed my files and sent them on, and if so, who. We are outraged and will simply not tolerate this.”
Following the leaks of the donations to Mr Farage from Cottrell and a £5 million gift from crypto billionaire Christopher Harborne to pay for the Brexit leader’s personal security, Farage announced that he would resign from Parliament and stand in a special by-election to allow his constituents in Clacton to decide his political fate.
However, in a remarkable act of political collusion, the other major parties have decided to boycott the election in a blatant attempt to undermine the legitimacy of the voters of Clacton.
Last year, former top advisor to Boris Johnson, Dominic Cummings, predicted that the British deep state would take drastic measures to undermine Reform and prevent Nigel Farage from becoming prime minister, as was attempted with President Trump.
“They’ll leak medical records, they’ll leak tax records, they’ll bug his phone and leak that. They’ll do anything they need to, and by the way that’s going to be happening all across Europe in parallel and they’ll all be telling themselves ‘we’re fighting fascism together’,” Cummings remarked.
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