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AT the recent Holyrood elections, Reform UK underperformed. Are they now looking at a wipeout?
A few months ago, the received wisdom was that Reform would sweep to at least 20 seats in the Scottish Parliament and comfortably steal second place from the Tories.
In the event, they got 17 seats and tied with Scottish Labour – a party in terminal decline – for the coveted silver medal position.
It could have been poor expectation management, with their bumbling Scottish leader Malcolm Offord setting himself up for epic failure when he very publicly bombed in the contest for the Inverclyde seat.
But there was also a sense that the party’s ties to its London-based leadership, and especially the kingpin Nigel Farage, could dull its shine north of the Border in a way that appears not to have hampered it to the same degree in England.
It is Farage’s star power – and the bulging bags of cash he brings in – that have propelled Reform to being a significant player in UK politics. Now that same money could be the thing that finally brings him down.
Farage is engulfed in the biggest crisis of his political career to date. Questions about the wealthy – and eccentric – figures bankrolling his ascendancy won’t go away .
There was the now infamous £5 million gift from the crypto billionaire Christopher Harborne, who goes by the name Chakrit Sakunkrit in his adopted home of Thailand.
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That went undeclared, despite it coming within 12 months of the General Election when Farage finally won a Commons seat after seven failed attempts.
It was the biggest single donation from a living person in British political history – but Farage said it was none of the public’s business.
Increasingly tetchy about it in interviews, he eventually declared that he could have spent it “on cars if I want to”. That felt somewhat at odds with his previous excuse that it was to fund the extensive security detail he claims to require.
The donation is now the subject of an investigation by Parliament’s sleaze watchdog.
Contrary to Farage’s protests, that gift was a big deal. But it is the financial backing he received from yet another colourful character that could be his ultimate downfall.
George Cottrell – Posh George to some – secretly funded staff, security and housing costs for the Reform UK leader , The Sunday Times revealed this weekend.
Reform have insisted that everything is above board but the story has clearly captured the public imagination. Why? Cottrell is an almost unbelievable figure, like something out of a Jeffrey Archer novel.
Born in 1993 to aristocratic and glamour model stock, the former gambling addict served eight months in US prisons for wire fraud after he was caught in a money laundering sting back in 2014.
A veritable litany of charges against him were dropped after he took a plea bargain but his stint in prison appeared to harm his political career not at all. Or his publishing career for that matter. His debut monograph “How to Launder Money” came out at the start of the year and made the Sunday Times bestseller list.
Farage and his team have been at pains to play the scandal down.
Robert Jenrick literally uttered the phrase: “There's nothing to see here.” The donation didn’t need to be reported because it came from “a friend”, said the former Tory minister, pleading: “Nigel’s allowed to have a friend.”
Farage may well be allowed “to have a friend” but if he keeps the company he does, then he should expect questions.
There have long been questions about Farage’s extra-parliamentary activities and his ability to bounce back from scandal is legendary. But this time, perhaps for the first time, Farage looks like he’s in real danger.