Police have launched a criminal investigation into the hard-right Reform UK party days after an explosive undercover report alleged they breached campaign finance laws by using foreign donors to pay for political polling.
The announcement follows an undercover sting broadcast by British news outlet Channel 4, which showed a reporter meeting with the party’s former head of policy James Orr and senior aide Dan Jukes and arranging for a US company to fund three polls commissioned by the party.
These polls were then reported by national newspapers who unknowingly characterized them as independent, helping to drive a key narrative before May’s local elections: that Reform is in the ascendancy and poses a genuine electoral threat to the governing center-left Labour Party and opposition center-right Conservatives.
A Reform UK spokesman told CNN the party “denies any wrongdoing and will cooperate fully with the investigation.”
The undercover reporter posed as the British son of a wealthy American who was willing to funnel money to Reform through his son, since foreign donations to political parties are prohibited under electoral law.
