The bribery started the day Nathan Gill quit UKIP and continued under Farage’s leadership. The press have barely said a word…
Nathan Gill, once Farage’s ally and Reform UK’s Welsh leader, has admitted to eight counts of bribery and is likely to serve jail time. Yet you probably haven’t heard about it, because most of the press isn’t covering it
Weirdly, this news has received very little news coverage, with the BBC only covering it under their ‘Wales’ section, and the Express, Daily Mail, Times and Sun not covering it at all (at time of writing)
The Reform Party themselves have remained silent on the matter, while many of its supporters claim it had nothing to do with Reform as the party ‘didn’t exist’ at the time of the bribes, and that Gill was just a lowly ‘foot soldier’ for whom Farage can’t be held responsible.
So I thought I’d do a little explainer and timeline, as a lot of this stuff doesn’t appear to be widely known.
The Bribery
It was reported in the BBC article:
“Nathan Gill, 52, from Llangefni, Anglesey, pleaded guilty to eight counts of bribery between December 6, 2018 and July 18, 2019.
The politician took money from Oleg Voloshyn – a man once described by the US government as a “pawn” of Russian secret services – and made speeches in the parliament, statements to a TV channel and arranged an event with a pro-Russian politician.
Gill will be sentenced in November and his defence barrister said he expected to be jailed.
The Old Bailey was told he was tasked by Ukrainian Oleg Voloshyn on at least eight occasions to make specific statements in return for money and there was evidence of WhatsApp messages between the two men.
Mr Voloshyn is a former member of the Ukrainian parliament for the pro-Russian Opposition Platform for Life party.”
“But Nathan Gill was in UKIP at the time – It’s nothing to do with Reform”
This has been a common comment to downplay the story. It’s far more complicated than that, and also not strictly true, but I’ll come to that in a bit…
Let’s take a look at the idea that UKIP, The Brexit Party and Reform UK are three distinct and separate parties.
First up, UKIP:
UKIP was founded over 30 years ago, in 1993.
Farage was party chairman from 1998 to 2000, UKIP leader several times between 2006 and 2016, and was a UKIP MEP (Member of the European Parliament) from 1999 until 2018.
In the 2014 European Elections, UKIP won 24 seats under Farage’s leadership, but by the end of that parliament in 2019, they had only 3 left.
Five had become Independents, one had moved to SDP, and one had moved to the Conservatives.
And the other 14? They were now Brexit Party MEPs, with Farage as their leader.
In the 2019 European elections, Farage led the Brexit Party to victory, winning 29 seats. UKIP won zero seats.
While the Brexit Party gained some support from other parties, it is clear that all the UKIP support followed Farage to the Brexit Party.
The Brexit Party MEPs included:
- Three former UKIP leaders
- One former deputy UKIP leader
- One former chair of the UKIP youth wing
- One former UKIP Welsh leader
- One former head of UKIP media
- One future deputy chairman of Reform UK
- One future Reform Party leader
- One future Welsh Reform leader
UKIP does still exist on paper. But since winning zero seats in those European elections, they have:
- Lost their deposit in every seat they stood in December 2019, getting just 0.1 per cent of the vote share.
- Achieved just 1.56 per cent of votes in the Senedd (Welsh Parliament) in Wales and 0.14 per cent in the Scottish Parliament elections in 2021 (despite standing in every constituency in Scotland)
- Lost all their seats in the 2021 local elections
- Lost all remaining local seats in the 2023 local elections
- Managed just 0.02 per cent of the vote share in the 2024 election.
During which time Farage’s party has gone from strength to strength.
Now, the Brexit Party Ltd:
The Brexit Party Ltd was registered with Companies House on November 23, 2018 by a former UKIP economics spokesperson, Catherine Blaiklock.
Farage officially joined the party in February 2019 and was leader by March.
In May 2021, “The Brexit Party Limited” changed its name to “Reform UK Party Limited” with Companies House.
The Brexit Party and the Reform Party are the same company. They just rebranded after Brexit happened. Richard Tice and Nigel Farage are the only two company Directors, and they have been there since May 2019.
The idea that Reform UK was a ‘new’ party in 2024 or that it’s different from the Brexit Party is just clever spin. It’s the same company, run by the same people, appealing to the same voters…
Back to Nathan Gill
Gill first ran for a local election with UKIP in 2012. Having failed to win a seat in 3 local elections, he finally managed to win a seat in the European election in May 2014 for UKIP.
In December 2014, at the UKIP Wales Party conference, Farage named Gill as the UKIP leader in Wales, saying:
“It was a tremendous honour to open the UKIP Wales Autumn Conference and it was my pleasure to announce Nathan Gill as Leader of UKIP in Wales. Nathan Gill’s appointment is a sign the party takes Wales and Welsh politics seriously.”
After UKIP won 7 seats in the Welsh Assembly in May 2016, they voted for Neil Hamilton (former Tory MP) to be their leader in the Assembly.
Farage responded, saying:
“I have worked closely with Nathan Gill as leader of UKIP Wales. I have always found him to be hard-working, honest, and loyal. His removal after a successful Welsh Assembly election campaign is unjust and an act of deep ingratitude”
Hamilton accused Farage of “throwing his toys out of the pram”. It was messy!
What is clear is the close links between Farage and Gill at that point.
On December 4, 2018, Farage quit UKIP, about 10 days after Blaiklock, his former economics spokesperson, registered The Brexit Party with Companies House.
Five MEPs followed suit within days, including Gill on December 6 and Paul Nuttall (former UKIP leader, now deputy chairman of Reform) on December 7.
Farage, Gill, Nuttall and the other two MEPs all joined the Brexit Party in February 2019, and by April, another seven UKIP MEPs had moved to the Brexit Party.
In May 2019, Farage and Gill were re-elected as Brexit Party MEPs and remained there until we left the EU.
In March 2021, Gill was announced as the Leader of Reform UK Wales, but when he failed to win a seat in the May 2021 Welsh Assembly elections, he appeared to quietly leave Reform with no announcement. Reform UK told a Welsh Newspaper that “Mr Gill has not been a member of Reform since May 2021”, although his Wikipedia page was only updated with the resignation in March 2022.
We now know that he was stopped at Manchester Airport on September 13 2021, under counter-terrorism laws, which led to his eventual guilty plea on bribery charges this week.
The Bribery Period
The 8 counts of bribery he has admitted to ran from December 6 2018 to July 18 2019.
Now, the extraordinarily eagle-eyed amongst you might have recognised that date – December 6, 2018 – as the date that Gill quit UKIP, two days after Farage.
I find that an incredible coincidence that no one in the media appears to have picked up on.
The day he quit UKIP was the day he took his first bribe!
The admitted bribery then continued until July 2018, during which time Gill joined The Brexit Party, and then stood for re-election as a Brexit Party MEP.
Given that we know the Russians interfered in the US 2016 Presidential election (US Department of Justice Report here), that we are almost certain they interfered in the Brexit Referendum (but security Services were told not to investigate, unlike in the US), that Farage and the rest of the Brexit Party voted against plans to tackle Russian propaganda, Farage’s multiple paid appearances Russian’s state propaganda TV, and the many unanswered questions around Farage’s links to Russia, not to mention the fact that Russia is currently waging a war on European soil, it is astounding that this story is going barely noticed this weekend.
After all, the press is rarely quiet on Reform’s views on anything, and they are gleefully predicting Farage will be our future Prime Minister. But apparently, this isn’t a matter they feel the need to cover. But not to worry, we’ve had lots of coverage of Stamer’s parents’ donkey field again and the “exclusive” Daily Mail revelation that Bridget Phillipson’s Mum bought her council house under Right to Buy and sold it 30 years later instead.
Summary
Nathan Gill has been close to Farage since 2014.
He has been an integral part of UKIP, then the Brexit Party and then Reform, all under Farage’s leadership.
The first admitted count of bribery began the day Gill followed Farage out of UKIP and continued while he was in Farage’s Brexit Party.
He only left the Reform Party after failing to win a seat in the Welsh assembly.
For those who prefer a visual summary, I made you this infographic:
The idea that this is “old news” or has no relevance to the current Reform party is ridiculous.
Farage wants to be Prime Minister. One of his decade-long allies has just admitted to taking Russian bribes while serving under him. And yet the press is barely covering this.
Thank you for sticking with me. I know this was a little different to my usual debunks, but I felt it was important information to get out there, as this story has passed so many people by.
Reproduced by kind permission of the author. You can subscribe to Emma’s brilliant Substack here.
