Al Jazeera – Breaking News, World News and Video from Al Jazeera
· collected 2026-09-06 · by Salma Yaqoob
Story summary
Reform UK, a British populist party led by Nigel Farage, has been embroiled in a scandal over foreign donations. The party received £4 million from Ben Delo, a crypto entrepreneur who was convicted of a banking secrecy violation in the US and pardoned by Donald Trump, accounting for 75% of its donations last quarter. However, an investigation by Channel 4 News found that Reform UK officials were secretly filmed discussing ways to circumvent UK electoral laws on foreign donations. Two senior officials, Dan Jukes and James Orr, have stepped down pending an internal investigation.
The undercover reporters from Verbatim posed as an American donor and his son who had paid for polling allegedly commissioned by Reform UK and were seeking to channel money to the party. Accepting donations from a foreign company can constitute a criminal offence, and the party has been reported to the police. The Liberal Democrats have also asked Parliament's standards watchdog to investigate the claims.
Farage has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing, saying that his party had broken no laws and dismissing Jukes' comments as "loose pub talk." However, the footage appears to show senior Reform figures discussing how to disguise donations from foreign sources, which could be a serious breach of electoral law.
Written for “Farage's Funding Scandal” on 2026-09-07,
grounded in this article and the 26 other(s) covering the same event.
This week, Reform UK gathered thousands of supporters at Birmingham’s National Exhibition Centre to present itself as a government-in-waiting.
asserted
UK → gather → waiting
This was not a sudden interest in Britain’s second-biggest city: Reform has repeatedly used Birmingham for national campaign launches and conferences, committing considerable resources to making it a showcase for its advance.
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it → use → advance
Birmingham – young, working-class, multiracial and almost evenly divided between residents recorded as white and those from Black, Asian, mixed and other ethnic groups – is precisely the kind of city Reform leader Nigel Farage’s politics portrays as a warning: a place where an older Britain has supposedly been displaced by an alien new one.
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Britain → divide → one
In May’s local elections, Reform became the largest single group on the Birmingham City Council, winning 23 of 101 seats.
uncertain
Reform → become → seats
The party’s growing presence in Birmingham, however, is not proof that multiculturalism has failed.
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multiculturalism → grow → Birmingham
It is a warning about the feeling of abandonment spreading across Britain.
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It → spread → Britain
Reform’s gains in the city demand serious attention.
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gains → demand → attention
They should neither be minimised by those repelled by its politics nor inflated into a popular mandate the party did not win.
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party → minimise → mandate
According to an analysis of the 2021 census, 48.6 percent of residents identified within the broad white category and 51.4 percent within Black, Asian, mixed or other ethnic categories.
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percent → accord → categories
But citywide diversity does not mean every ward is equally diverse, or that ethnicity is the only lens through which people vote.
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people → mean → which
Reform’s strongest performances were concentrated in particular outer-city wards which are poor and less diverse.
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which → concentrate → wards
Meanwhile, the Green Party won the largest number of votes across the city, but due to Britain’s first-past-the-post system, got only 19 seats.
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Party → win → seats
Labour collapsed to 17 seats (down from 65), the Conservative Party got 16, the Liberal Democrats 12, and 14 went to independent groups and candidates.
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14 → collapse → groups
Being the largest group in the council has not translated into power for Reform either.
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Being → translate → Reform
The party has found no partners.
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party → find → partners
The city is now run by a collaborative minority administration of Liberal Democrats, Greens and the “Better Birmingham” Independents group, with a Liberal Democrat leader and Green deputy.
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city → run → leader
Reform has neither won Birmingham nor governs it.
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Reform → win → it
It has a foothold.
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It → have → foothold
This matters because too much national commentary treats disillusionment with Labour as if it can travel in only one direction.
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it → matter → direction
It is benefitting Reform, but it is also creating space for a progressive challenge.
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it → benefit → challenge
Under their leader Zack Polanski, the Greens have offered a clearer language of economic justice, public investment and opposition to racism.
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Greens → offer → racism
Nationally, they won the Gorton and Denton by-election in February, cementing their position as a credible progressive electoral option, leading to unprecedented council gains, took control of councils, won mayorships, and broke new ground in the Scottish and Welsh parliaments
The result has exposed Labour’s twin vulnerability: voters are moving to the right, but also to a left that has rejected the premise that Farage speaks for everyone left behind.
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Farage → win → everyone
What Reform and other parties are doing is occupying a political vacuum left by failed centrist politics.
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doing → do → politics
In Birmingham, it is hardly surprising that Labour is being abandoned.
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Labour → abandon → Birmingham
For years, residents were told to absorb decline as though it were unavoidable weather.
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it → tell → decline
The Labour-controlled council effectively declared bankruptcy in 2023 after historic equal-pay liabilities, a disastrous IT programme and the long erosion of local government funding.
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council → control → funding
Services were cut, council tax rose, youth provision disappeared and a prolonged refuse strike left rubbish in the streets.
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strike → cut → streets
The cost-of-living crisis struck communities already weakened by low pay, insecure work and threadbare services.
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crisis → strike → pay
Recent local data show that more than half of Birmingham’s neighbourhoods fall within England’s most deprived fifth.
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half → show → fifth
Official estimates put 44.4 percent of the city’s children in poverty.
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estimates → put → poverty
Until recently, I served as associate director of health inequalities across Birmingham and Solihull’s NHS system.
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I → serve → Birmingham
I saw how those pressures enter the body and the mind.
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pressures → see → body
Poverty becomes ill health long before a patient reaches a clinic: through cold or overcrowded housing, insecure work, unaffordable food, chronic stress, poor air quality and the practical barriers that make prevention and treatment harder to access.
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prevention → become → housing
A city cannot remove the conditions for a healthy life and then be surprised when both illness and anger deepen.
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illness → remove → life
Reform offers false nostalgia: the promise of return to a secure, culturally uniform Britain that never existed for millions of working-class people.
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that → offer → people
It replaces history with a comforting myth, then names migrants and minorities as the thieves of an imagined inheritance.
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It → replace → inheritance
But simply denouncing Reform voters as racists is morally lazy and politically useless.
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denouncing → denounce → racists
Racism exists, and some voters are attracted precisely because Reform licenses prejudice.
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Reform → exist → prejudice
Others vote from fury, alienation or the desire to punish every party that has governed them.
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that → vote → them
The task is to distinguish between the legitimate wound and the poisonous diagnosis offered for it.
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task → distinguish → it
…and 15 more, not listed.
