Farage faces formal complaint over donations from rightwing US PR firm

Nigel Farage’s appetite for expensive freebies has put him back in the firing line, after Good Law Project sent a formal complaint to parliament’s standards commissioner over his failure to declare advice from a US PR firm.

Documents released in the US reveal that the MP for Clacton received help with speaking engagements, political meetings, media appearances and travel from Capital HQ – a firm run by a former spokesperson for the far-right agitator Steve Bannon.

According to a statement filed with the US Department of Justice, Farage was benefitting from an extremely comprehensive service. Between 27 September and 17 February he was in touch with the firm via “telephone, email and text” almost every day – including Christmas.

Farage didn’t pay a penny for any of this media support. And none of it appears in his register of interests, even though parliament’s code of conduct requires MPs to declare “any benefits” from sources outside the UK “which relate in any way to their membership of the house or parliamentary or political activities”.

This isn’t the first time Farage has tried to keep his US dealings off the books. In October we worked with the Guardian to expose how he failed to declare support from Capital HQ for hotels, transport and media appearances in the States over the summer.

Farage’s team showed their contempt for parliament when the newspaper asked why he had not made a declaration, his spokesperson saying only, “Nigel Farage is a politician, not an accountant.”

This support has come to an end, for now. Capital HQ’s CEO, Alexandra Preate, has been rewarded for her loyalty and donations to Trump with a role in the US Treasury.

But this doesn’t mean Farage will be reaching into his own pocket to cover his stateside expenses. Last month, the Guardian reported that the MP’s trip to meet Elon Musk in Florida was part-funded by the convicted fraudster, George Cottrell.

Farage only declared both his lucrative side hustle flogging gold coins and his role in an anti-World Health Organisation pressure group after we brought them to light. It’s time for the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards to take action.

And he’ll be cheered on by Reform UK. After all, it’s only a few days since the party’s chair declared that “Reform stands for the highest standards of conduct in public life”.

When the Guardian asked Nigel Farage’s team about this story, they declined to comment.