Farage Reported to Standards Watchdog Over Crypto Lobbying for Tether
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- Phil Brickell reported Nigel Farage to Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards Daniel Greenberg, alleging Farage lobbied Bank of England Governor Andrew Bailey on crypto policy that could benefit his biggest donor — a Tether investor who gave him £5 million.
- The complaint centers on a private September 2025 meeting in which Farage urged Bailey to drop plans for a state-run digital pound ("Britcoin"); Farage later claimed credit when the Bank dropped a proposed £20,000 cap on individual stablecoin holdings.
- Christopher Harborne, a British, Thailand-based billionaire who holds a 12% stake in USDT issuer Tether and ranks sixth on the Sunday Times Rich List, gave Farage an undeclared £5 million ($6.7 million) gift prior to the July 2024 general election.
- Reform UK received a further £15 million from Harborne between August 2025 and February 2026, plus two £25,000 political donations in January 2025 and February 2026 for trips to the U.S. and the Chagos Islands, per the Guardian.
- Parliamentary rules bar MPs from approaching officials or ministers on behalf of people who pay them for 12 months after such a payment — the rule Brickell alleges Farage violated by lobbying the Bank of England on crypto policy tied to Harborne.
- Labour MP Joe Powell separately wrote to Bailey requesting details of the meeting, arguing that decisions on the UK's financial system "must not be shaped behind closed doors to benefit individual financiers," while the Bank said the meeting was routine engagement and released no minutes.
- Farage and Harborne both said the billionaire wanted nothing in return; Farage's account of the gift has shifted from covering security costs, to rewarding his Brexit campaigning, to money he can spend as he likes, and Reform UK called the allegations "utter rubbish."
Why it matters: Greenberg is already separately investigating whether Farage should have declared the £5 million personal gift, and this new complaint targets the lobbying window — meaning Farage faces parallel standards probes tied to the same donor. The Bank of England's refusal to release meeting minutes leaves unverified whether Bailey's softening on the £20,000 stablecoin cap followed from Farage's pressure or independent review.
