The British police are investigating donations worth at least 500,000 pounds, about $670,000, made to the populist right-wing party Reform U.K., according to British news reports, adding to the pressure on its leader, Nigel Farage.
The Metropolitan Police in London confirmed in a statement to The New York Times on Friday that they were investigating donations made to a political party before the 2024 general election and whether they were legal.
Two people had been questioned as part of that investigation, the police said, adding that no arrests had been made. In keeping with British police practice, the statement did not name the people who had been interviewed or the political party that received the donations.
The investigation was initially reported on Thursday night by The Times of London, and later by The Guardian, both of which named Reform U.K. as the party involved.
“An investigation was launched in February 2025 after a referral was made to the Metropolitan Police by the Electoral Commission,” the police statement said, referring to the independent body that oversees elections and political finance in Britain. Detectives were investigating “alleged offenses under Section 61 of the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000,” the statement added.
That section of the legislation relates to “the evasion of restrictions on donations,” which could include concealing or disguising donations from an impermissible donor or knowingly giving false information about the source of a donation.
Reform U.K. did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The news of the investigation comes at a time of turmoil for Mr. Farage, who was a leading campaigner for Brexit and has been an ally of President Trump. His party has led national opinion polls for more than a year, but its support has fallen from about 30 percent of voters last year to about 25 percent now. The next general election, which Mr. Farage hopes to win, must take place by 2029, and his increased prominence has attracted greater scrutiny of his party’s finances.
On Monday, Mr. Farage unexpectedly announced that, amid an investigation into whether he had broken parliamentary rules over an undisclosed gift, he would resign from his parliamentary seat in Clacton, eastern England, and immediately run for re-election there.
He said that he had done nothing wrong and declared that “the people of Clacton should be the judges of my actions.”
Parliament’s standards commissioner is investigating whether Mr. Farage broke regulations by failing to declare a gift of five million pounds, about $6.7 million, from Christopher Harborne, a British cryptocurrency billionaire who lives in Thailand. The gift was received weeks before Mr. Farage said he would run in the 2024 general election, a surprise move that reversed a previous announcement.
Mr. Farage has argued that, because the money was given before he entered Parliament, he did not need to register it; he has described it as a personal gift. But parliamentary rules state that new lawmakers must declare any financial benefits received in the 12 months before their election that might “reasonably be thought by others to influence his or her actions, speeches or votes in Parliament.”
In his speech on Monday, Mr. Farage confirmed that a second parliamentary inquiry was underway following reports that he received undisclosed gifts and support from a close ally, George Cottrell, who served eight months in prison in the United States for wire fraud.
According to The Times of London, the case at the center of the police investigation it reported this week involves two donations made by Fiona Cottrell, Mr. Cottrell’s mother. The two payments of £250,000 from Ms. Cottrell were made to Reform before the 2024 general election on July 4. The first was logged on May 9 of that year and the second on May 29, according to records published by the Electoral Commission.
The Times of London said that Ms. Cottrell had “refused to address any questions about her financial contributions for more than a year.” The New York Times was unable to reach her on Friday.
The revelations over the financing of Reform U.K. come at a time of transition in British politics with Andy Burnham, the former mayor of Greater Manchester, on the brink of succeeding Prime Minister Keir Starmer.
Since nominations for the leadership of the governing Labour Party opened on Thursday, Mr. Burnham has received the support of 322 of the party’s 403 national lawmakers, making it all but certain that he will become its leader and therefore prime minister. Any rival candidate would require the support of every single other Labour member of Parliament to run.
Under the timetable now expected, Mr. Burnham would be declared Labour leader at the end of next week and formally become prime minister on July 20.
The special election that Mr. Farage has precipitated in Clacton will take place on Aug. 13, the local municipality announced on Friday.
Mr. Farage had promised a “people versus the establishment” vote but that framing has been dealt a blow by the other main parties, which have dismissed the contest as a gimmick and announced they will not run candidates.
While Mr. Farage is highly likely to be re-elected, any victory would be over several novelty candidates, most prominently one who wears a trash-can-themed costume and uses the name Count Binface.
