Reform UK leader Nigel Farage says he will quit as a lawmaker and seek re-election to clear his name over financial allegations linked to millions of dollars’ worth of donations.
“I have done nothing wrong. I have not broken the law in any way at all. I have not misused public money,” Farage, a prominent ally of US President Donald Trump, said in a broadcast statement that did not take questions.
Farage faces a probe by parliament’s standards watchdog over a £5 million (US$6.7 million) gift from a Thailand-based cryptocurrency billionaire. Opposition lawmakers are seeking another investigation over donations from George Cottrell, an aristocratic crypto-gambling entrepreneur who served a prison sentence for fraud in the US.
The probes could have led to Farage being suspended or expelled from parliament. He will pre-empt that process by triggering an election for his Clacton seat in eastern England.
“The people of Clacton should be the judges of my actions,” he said. “This will be a people-versus-the-establishment by-election.
“I will fight to win.”
