Nigel Farage: Departing aides guilty of only ‘loose pub talk’

BIRMINGHAM, England — Two top Reform UK aides forced to step down amid an undercover donations sting were guilty of untrue boasts and “loose pub talk,” party leader Nigel Farage claimed Friday. “There was certainly human error here,” Farage acknowledged during a press conference alongside National Rally vice president Jordan Bardella, invited to celebrate a joint policy rollout on migration. “It should not have happened.” Dan Jukes, Farage’s long-term media chief, and James Orr, his senior policy adviser, stepped down Friday morning after Channel 4 broadcast footage apparently showing them agreeing to take donations from a foreign benefactor via a middle-man in the U.K. Experts allege taking the cash and then seeking to hide its provenance could be a breach of U.K. electoral law. “Let me be clear: the party has done nothing wrong, taken no illegal money,” Farage added. “What is more problematic is loose pub talk, including a couple of boasts that simply were not true.” Jukes, in the video footage, claimed the party has taken donations from foreign nationals through money given in the name of someone in the U.K. “That’s one of the ways in which we do it,” Jukes is recorded as saying. Farage said this isn’t true. The departure of the senior aides has rocked Reform’s national conference, which Farage had hoped to use as an opportunity to reset the narrative after a difficult summer.