Reform UK presents itself as the people\u2019s voice while opaque digital wealth flows around it. That makes transparency a democratic necessity<\/p>\n
Twice now, the Guardian\u2019s questions about Reform UK\u2019s finances appear to have been pre-empted by stories friendly to the party. This paper revealed<\/a> in April that Nigel Farage received \u00a35m from the crypto billionaire Christopher Harborne \u2013 but an interview<\/a> with Reform UK\u2019s leader, claiming he needed the cash \u201cfor security\u201d, was published hours earlier in the Telegraph. Then, Richard Tice\u2019s suggestion<\/a> that the National Crime Agency (NCA) had leaked the MP\u2019s bank statements landed on the Telegraph site on Tuesday, just before the Guardian said bankers<\/a> had reported the \u00a35m donation to law enforcement over money-laundering concerns.<\/p>\n A party serious about probity would have no issue answering questions about such cash. Instead, Reform uses a pliant media outlet to frame scrutiny as persecution. In Mr Farage\u2019s world, the questions become the scandal<\/a>, not the large undisclosed sums. That is a warning about how an authoritarian nationalist party that aspires to govern treats accountability: not as a democratic obligation, but as an attack.<\/p>\n Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters<\/a> section, please click here<\/a>.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n Continue reading…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Reform UK presents itself as the people\u2019s voice while opaque digital wealth flows around it. That makes transparency a democratic necessity Twice now, the Guardian\u2019s questions about Reform UK\u2019s finances appear to have been pre-empted by stories friendly to the party. This paper revealed in April that Nigel Farage received \u00a35m from the crypto billionaire … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-75910","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75910","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=75910"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75910\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=75910"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=75910"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=75910"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}