Key facts
- Nigel Farage received £270,000 from Direct Bullion, a gold marketer he promotes.
- The payment is his single biggest as an MP.
- Farage is a brand ambassador for Direct Bullion.
- He is facing a formal investigation by the parliamentary standards watchdog.
- Farage has given multiple accounts for the payment's purpose.
Nigel Farage, the leader of the Reform UK party, has received a payment of £270,000 from Direct Bullion, a gold marketing company for which he serves as a brand ambassador. This sum represents his largest payment as a Member of Parliament and has been disclosed in the latest entry to parliament’s register of interests. Farage has previously been criticized for his role promoting the idea of purchasing physical gold for pension pots through Direct Bullion, a role that reportedly earns him £400,000 annually.
The £270,000 payment, disclosed as appearing in May, is double his fee from 2025. This development comes amid ongoing scrutiny over a separate £5 million gift Farage received from Christopher Harborne, a crypto investor based in Thailand who has provided substantial funding to Reform UK.
Farage has stated that the £270,000 payment was a gift and therefore did not require registration under rules concerning the declaration of potential interests in the 12 months preceding an election. However, he is currently subject to a formal investigation by the parliamentary standards watchdog. He has offered varying explanations for the payment, initially suggesting it was intended for personal security costs before later characterizing it as a reward for Brexit.
Responding to inquiries about the payment, which equates to an hourly rate of £22,500, a spokesperson for Reform UK confirmed that Nigel Farage is a brand ambassador for Direct Bullion, as previously reported and declared. Records indicate that Farage received £91,200 from the company for approximately four hours of work in January 2025, followed by £135,000 nine months later for an estimated 12 hours of work spread over three months.
The latest register of interests also notes that Farage received £18,402 for roughly six hours of presenting for GB News in June. His other declared professional activities include speaking engagements for Imperial Independent Media, a U.S.-based consulting firm, and social media work for Google and X. Additionally, Lee Anderson, another Reform MP and the party’s chair, along with Richard Tice, Reform’s spokesperson for business, trade, and energy, have also registered social media work undertaken for X.