Nigel Farage told a crowd of crypto enthusiasts he would be “prepared to go to prison” to stop the Bank of England’s planned state-run digital currency, footage from a London event shows – as Labour demanded an investigation into whether the Reform UK leader was lobbying to protect the interests of his billionaire donor.
The comments came after a private meeting last September at Threadneedle Street, where Farage and fellow Reform MP Richard Tice urged governor Andrew Bailey to drop the so-called Britcoin proposal. Farage recounted the exchange at October’s Zebu Live event: “I asked him straight: ‘Are you still progressing your plans for a British central bank digital currency?’ And the answer was: ‘Yes.’”
“Farage told crowd he'd go to prison to stop Bank's digital pound; Labour demands probe into lobbying for donor”
Farage’s opposition has raised questions about the motives behind his intervention. Christopher Harborne, a Thailand-based billionaire who has donated £25m to Reform UK – about two-thirds of its funding – and gave an undeclared £5m personal gift to Farage, holds a 12% stake in Tether, the company behind the world’s most traded cryptocurrency. Tether’s stablecoins, pegged to government currencies, could see demand fall if a state-run alternative is introduced, according to an industry body submission to the Bank of England. Harborne’s share of Tether’s reported profits, which have surpassed those of Netflix and Coca-Cola, is estimated at about £1bn a year.
Anna Turley, chair of the Labour party, said she would write to the financial regulator to ask it to investigate Farage’s actions. The Evening Standard reported that Labour is calling for a probe into what it described as “crypto lobbying to line donor’s pockets”.
Farage has said Harborne wants nothing in exchange for the millions donated. But the Reform leader’s intense lobbying against Britcoin – which he has viewed with “total and utter horror” – has now drawn scrutiny from the party’s political opponents. Meanwhile, deepfake memes promoting crypto scams have recently surfaced, depicting Farage beating up Bailey in a falsified video.