Arron Banks ‘hired private detective’ to look into journalist who investigated Reform UK

The prominent Reform UK member and Brexit campaigner Arron Banks is said to have set private investigators on a Sunday Times journalist after he broke a series of stories about Nigel Farage. The gifts the Reform UK leader Nigel Farage received in the 12 months before being elected as MP for Clacton have been subject to widespread media scrutiny in recent months. In April, the Guardian reported that he had accepted a £5m gift from Christopher Harborne, a billionaire donor to Reform UK. Cottrell’s mother, the retired stylist Fiona Cottrell, made a series of donations to Reform UK in the weeks before the general election. A Reform UK spokesperson denied the party knew about or sanctioned the surveillance on Pogrund.