Nigel Farage, who has breached the MPs’ code of conduct 17 times by failing to register financial interests on time, gave an extraordinary defence about the money he earns
Nigel Farage has claimed he doesn’t make “any money” from his £94,000 salary as an MP after scrambling to defend more than a dozen breaches of the members’ code of conduct.
The Reform UK leader – who has earned more than £1million from second jobs since the general election – filed late entries for 17 financial interests amounting to more than £380,000. The Clacton MP boasted he makes money because “I’m Nigel Farage” despite being long criticised for his money-spinning side hustles outside of his £93,904-a-year salary as an MP.
In an extraordinary probe, Mr Farage whined to parliamentary standards commissioner Daniel Greenberg he has a “very complicated and complex set of interests” as he is a TV presenter and “successful private businessmen” as well as an MP.
In a meeting to December, Mr Farage told him: “I’m not making any money as a result of being an MP, quite the opposite, I’m making it because I’m Nigel Farage and I’ve got other interests.” He was spared further punishment after insisting the breaches were an “administrative error” by a member of his staff.
READ MORE: Nigel Farage breaks MPs’ code of conduct with 17 breaches
Out of the 17 late registered interests, they included six payments from GB News, where he is a TV presenter, one from his ambassador role with precious metal dealer Direct Bullion and three from Google.
In the meeting in December, Mr Farage claimed the MPs’ financial interests system “is not designed for anybody in business because you have to declare your gross income, including VAT without your staff bills and salary bills”.
The Reform politician continued “I understand it’s not designed for people like me. But at that said, I have declared the gross income of what I’ve done, including VAT, obviously with not salary, expenses etcetera taken off. I haven’t tried to disguise anything.
“I think, you know, I’ve been in business since 1993. You know, I’ve never had problems with the Revenue or anyone like that. I believe myself to be above board. I’m not making any money as a result of being an MP, quite the opposite, I’m making it because I’m Nigel Farage and I’ve got other interests. And you may note, far from gaming the system, I have taken zero personal expenses, and the reason for that is I think, well I’ve got outside income, so I shouldn’t need to claim them. So I certainly wouldn’t try to withhold or deceive.”
Mr Farage said the late filing of his interests had been due to a “gross administrative error” by a staff member. In an attempt to explain the error, he said his team’s “political lives have exploded” since the election and said he was going to get “outside money” to ramp up the size of his office.
He said: “I fully accept, fully accept, that I’m in the wrong in everyway, because if your staff mess up, ultimately you’re responsible and that’s what happens with rank in life, whether you’re, you know, running a business or a Member of Parliament. So, you know, it is ultimately my fault, but I can assure you something went wrong.
“I, you know, the only explanation is that, you know, our political lives have exploded in the last 18 months in ways that we could never have comprehended. We are overwhelmed in every sense. Even my MP e-mail gets 1,000 emails a day. And we’ve basically failed to cope with, or to be frank, not just with this, but with many other things too. So I’m going to staff up, I’m going to get outside money to increase the size of my office and the things that I do.”
An analysis by The Mirror earlier this month of Mr Farage’s Register of Interests revealed he has pocketed huge sums in travel from donors and authorities around the world. Just last month Mr Farage – who previously drove a Volvo and has enjoyed chauffeur driven trips in his Range Rover – jetted to Abu Dhabi for the December 7 race.
The latest register of members’ financial interest, published on Monday, showed Mr Farage – raked in more than £70,000 from his role as a GB News presenter in December alone.
Last year alone, he trousered more than £200,000 for working as a brand ambassador for Direct Bullion. Since the election, he has also earned thousands of pounds for services to Cameo video recordings, for doing social media with Elon Musk’s social platform X and for speaking engagements. He also earns around £4,000 a month writing articles for the Telegraph.
A Labour Party spokesman said: “Nigel Farage is so distracted with tempting failed Tory politicians into his party that he can’t even get the basics right. He isn’t on the side of working people – he’s just lining his pockets when he should be standing up for his constituents.
“He boasts about making money ‘because I’m Nigel Farage’, raking in millions through various outside jobs. But he neglects to do the important work that hard-pressed taxpayers fork out for him to do. Labour will tighten the rules on MPs’ second jobs to make sure the public get the attention they expect and deserve from their elected representatives.”
Liberal Democrat Deputy Leader Daisy Cooper said: “Five Jobs Farage is spending far too much time jetting off to talk our country down in the US and cashing in from his GB News show. Just like his idol Donald Trump, Farage thinks politics is all about lining his own pockets not serving the people. We can’t let Trump’s America become Farage’s Britain. Farage should spend more time in Clacton and less time on Cameo.”
In a report released on Wednesday, Mr Greenberg said: “Following a complaint from a member of the public that Mr Nigel Farage had registered interests outside the 28-day time limit set by the House, I undertook a wider review of Mr Farage’s entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests.
“Having done so, I identified several other interests that appeared to have been registered late, and I opened a formal inquiry on 30 October 2025 to investigate Mr Farage’s compliance with Rule 5 of the Code of Conduct. During my investigation, I established that there had been seventeen breaches of Rule 5 of the Code by Mr Farage’s failure to add interests within the 28-day period set by the House.”
He concluded “the failure to register these interests on time was inadvertent because of staffing and other administrative issues”. Due to the failure being “inadvertent”, the commissioner decided not to refer this matter to the Committee on Standards despite the large number of breaches. He instead said the matter was suitable for the “rectification process”.