Nigel Farage has said the UK is a “complainants’ society”, as he faces ongoing questions about both his and his party’s funding.
Speaking to the ahead of the party’s annual conference this week, the Reform UK leader said a “whole ecosystem” didn’t want “new kids on the block succeeding”.
It comes after a summer dominated by headlines about the party’s finances and £5m he received from a party supporter before the last election.
Farage said he expects it “won’t be too long” before he is interviewed as part of the ongoing parliamentary investigation into whether he should have publicly declared the sum upon his election as an MP.
The Reform UK leader said he hoped the investigation, which was launched in May but paused during the by-election he triggered in his Clacton seat, would “move a bit faster” now he had been re-elected to Parliament.
Farage has faced weeks of headlines about funding, including £5m he received before entering Parliament from Christopher Harborne, a Thailand-based British cryptocurrency investor and major Reform donor.
Parliament’s standards commissioner is investigating whether he should have declared that sum upon becoming an MP in his published register of financial interests.
Farage has said the £5m was a personal gift and did not therefore require registration under the rules.
He continued to insist he believes he had done “nothing wrong”, but ultimately it would be a “matter of interpretation” for the investigation to resolve.
Asked about the funding questions that have dogged the party over the summer recess, he said: “The point is, we live in a complainants’ society.
“If you complain about me, automatically that triggers an investigation.”
He said that political parties were “constantly writing to all the authorities”, meaning Reform was “under investigation every day for virtually everything we do”.
“There’s a big picture here. The old two-party system that has dominated since the end of the First World War feels for the first time it faces an existential threat.
“There is a whole ecosystem with a century of development around this. And we come along from virtually nowhere and threaten the whole thing.
“So I think what you’re seeing is the establishment, in a very co-ordinated way, fighting back.”
Pressed on what he meant, he added: “I’m talking about normal human behaviour.
“People who hold positions of power, influence and money don’t want new kids on the block succeeding. It’s the whole ecosystem, it’s everything.”