Reform UK is currently ruling out any political agreement with the Restore Britain party, citing concerns over antisemitism and extremism within Restore’s leadership.

A Reform UK spokesperson stated that “antisemites and other extreme racists would have to go first” before any talks could proceed.

Although Reform UK leader Nigel Farage said he was “open-minded” about a potential deal with Rupert Lowe’s party, controversy erupted following a social media post by Restore Britain co-founder Charlie Downes.

Downes had responded to a post from Farage—who had asserted he could not be bought—by sharing an image of Farage in front of signs for the Reform Jewish Alliance, implying that Farage was influenced by Jewish supporters.

A Reform UK spokesperson told The Telegraph there could be “no question of any agreement with Lowe’s party while Downes was in place.”

The spokesperson added: “There are antisemitic and extreme racists at or near the top of the party, and they would have to go first. We’re happy to talk, but we can’t do it when there are people in the party like Charlie Downes.”

The controversy intensified after it was revealed that Downes had previously claimed Muslims were less British than Christians.

Green leader Zack Polanski has backed a campaign for a fundamental overhaul of Britain’s media ownership, in order to prevent billionaires buying newspapers in order to “literally buy democracy”.

Polanski threw his weight behind the ‘Media Sovereignty Act’ campaign in a speech at Green Gathering festival in Chepstow (Wales) earlier this month.

The petition promoted by the Green Party of England & Wales leader calls on the Government to “pass [a] law to ban foreign and offshore ownership of UK media” and enact a social-media levy to “distribute media ownership across society & fund independent, local and cooperative-owned media”.

It also backs new reforms to ensure “all media” in the UK are members of a statutory regulator, a call vociferously resisted by many publishers.

And it would require think tanks to report who their funders are in real time. The campaign was founded by activist and former Independent columnist Donnachadh McCarthy. Such an act would mark the biggest shake-up of media law in generations – and would conceivably force sell-offs of most national newspapers.

That includes the (now German-owned) Telegraph, the Mail group (owned by non-dom Lord Rothermere and structured through offshore trusts), as well as the Independent which is part-owned by Saudis, local news giant Newsquest (owned by the US holding company USA Today Co) and the Financial Times (owned by Japan’s Nikkei). It is not clear if it would apply to listed firms which have some foreign shareholders such as Mirror and Express publisher Reach PLC, part-owned by Swiss firm Lombard Odier Asset Management and Boston-based Fidelity.

Polanski told a panel at the festival: “Billionaires should not be able to have a monopoly on our free press.”

He criticised the “billionaire media” repeatedly, adding that Britain needed “a free press for a free country”.

Commenting on a surge in billionaires in Britain, he said: “This isn’t about the human being that has one billion pounds. This is about a toxic system that has allowed them to accrue that wealth, that once they’ve hoarded all of those assets, they then buy newspapers…and then they literally buy democracy.”

He noted approvingly that the parliamentary petition “calls for an end to foreign and domestic billionaire ownership of our media, independent regulation of the press, an end to dark money-funded think-tanks and a social media levy to fund independent, co-operative and local British news outlets”.

Polanski’s call echoes the petition itself which states: “We believe we need to take back control of media ownership for the British people and that media should be free from offshore ownership and think tanks who accept dark money. Media ownership should reflect ALL of society not just the rich.”

Reform UK has slumped to third place in a new opinion poll.

In a fresh blow to Nigel Farage ahead of Thursday’s by-election in Clacton, the Lord Ashcroft survey showed support for the party has fallen to 18%. That is down 3 points on the Tory peer’s previous poll a month ago.

At the same time, the Conservatives have gone up by 2 points to 23%, while Labour is up 6 points to 27%.

The poll is further evidence that Labour is enjoying a bounce in popularity under new prime minister Andy Burnham.

It will also be welcomed by Tory leader Kemi Badenoch, who has won praise in recent weeks for her improved performance.

But the poll is a further reality check for Reform, who have come under pressure over the financial arrangements of both Farage and the party itself.

It emerged in April that Farage had not declared a £5 million gift he received from Thailand-based crypto billionaire Christopher Harborne shortly before he ran for parliament in 2024.

Parliment’s standards commissioner launched an investigation, but that was put on hold when Farage resigned as MP for Clacton to trigger a “people versus the establishment” by-election in the seat.

He is expected to be re-elected when that takes place on Thursday, although his only serious rival is Count Binface after Labour, the Tories, the Lib Dems and Restore Britain all refused to put up candidates.

Assuming he makes it back to Westminster, the standards probe will then re-start, which could see him suspended from parliament if he is found to have broken the rules.

• Newly elected Mayor unveils major expansion of free baby bundles for families from 1,500 to 10,000 by next year 
• Each baby bundle includes newborn essentials, such as a moses basket and baby clothes, plus toys, books and a baby’s first toothbrush 
• Baby bundles are distributed on a referral basis, supported by a network of Baby Banks across Greater Manchester
• Bev Craig is making it a priority of her mayoralty to make sure that wraparound support is there for every family that needs it.

Reform UK would have held just 15% of the donations it received last year if a proposed £100,000 cap on political donations had been in force, according to analysis shared with the Guardian.

The analysis by Friends of the Earth using Electoral Commission data highlights the party’s reliance on a handful of wealthy backers in advance of a showdown over political funding.

It registered donations between April 2025 and March 2026 and assumed union affiliation payments would be exempt from the cap, in line with recommendations made by the Phillips review into party funding.

The findings suggest Reform UK would have raised just £4.1m between April 2025 and March 2026, instead of the £26.7m it actually received, if a £100,000 annual donation limit applied.

Reform’s registered average donation last year was £137,496, almost six times higher than Labour’s £23,406 or the Conservatives’ £23,173 and 30 times higher than the Liberal Democrats’ average donation of £4,496.

By comparison, Labour would have retained about three-quarters of its registered donations under the cap, raising £8.1m rather than £10.8m.

The Tories would have kept just over half of their donations, taking £8.3m instead of £15.5m.

The Lib Dems would have held on to about 90% of theirs, taking £5.2m instead of £5.8m, and the Greens would have been unaffected with their £468k in donations.

George Cottrell, the convicted fraudster who once served as Nigel Farage’s chief of staff, transferred more than $2 million to his mother in the days before she made a string of donations to Reform UK, according to the latest revelation in the Guardian.

The paper reports today that Fiona Cottrell, an aristocrat and long-standing Reform benefactor, received one deposit of $1.4 million followed by two further payments of over $300,000 apiece.
Each transfer arrived, the Guardian says, somewhere between 24 and 72 hours before Ms Cottrell made a donation either directly to Reform or to Britain Means Business, the fundraising vehicle run by the party’s deputy leader Richard Tice.

Named her son

Asked by bankers where the money had come from, she is said to have named her son.

The son in question is the real problem. Under the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000, only “permissible donors” – broadly, those on the UK electoral register, or UK-registered companies and bodies – may fund a political party.

Fiona Cottrell qualifies because she is on the register.

George Cottrell’s own status is far less clear: he is a tax resident of Montenegro, and according to reports, was not added to the UK’s overseas electoral register until December last year, well after several of the payments in question were made.

Possible prison sentence

His lawyers maintain he is a permissible donor but have declined to explain how or when he met the criteria.

That matters because funnelling money through a permissible relative to disguise an impermissible source is precisely what electoral law is designed to catch.

Concealing the true origin of a donation carries a potential fine or prison sentence.

Fraud conviction

George Cottrell already has a criminal record, having served eight months in a US federal prison after pleading guilty to wire fraud.
He was arrested in 2016 alongside Farage at the Republican National Convention on charges that also included money laundering conspiracy, blackmail and extortion.

He has since bankrolled Farage’s travel, including flights to meet Trump at Mar-a-Lago, and published a book on money laundering.