Reform UK receives £100,000 donation from design firm that faced winding-up petition

Nigel Farage’s Reform UK has received a £100,000 donation from a design and architecture firm that faced a winding-up petition from the tax authorities earlier this year.

The party, which is leading in the polls, has been raising money from a wider range of private sources in recent months, with its treasurer, Nick Candy, talking of targeting high net worth individuals both in the UK and in low-tax jurisdictions.

Farage has also been challenged over his own tax affairs after it emerged his Clacton constituency home was bought by his partner, Laure Ferrari, in a move that meant a higher rate of stamp duty was not paid. Farage has said his partner bought the house with her own money for security reasons.

It can now be revealed that the £100,000 donation were made in three tranches in June this year from a company called Interior Design Landscape, which was originally set up in 2013 by a British Virgin Islands-based company of the same name. Its current sole owner is listed as a British company director called John Richard Simpson.

It describes itself as “one of London’s leading luxury interior designers” but had no contact details on its website until approached by the Guardian through its accountancy firm in Chiswick, and uses stock images to illustrate examples of projects it has worked on in London, from Hampstead Heath to Mayfair.

The firm had assets of £99,000 and a tax liability of more than £200,000 due within a year when its last accounts were filed for the year ending January 2024, according to Companies House.

It has twice been the subject of strike-off attempts by Companies House after late filing of its accounts and was subject to a winding-up petition by HM Revenue and Customs in March this year.

A winding up petition is brought as a measure of last resort by HMRC, whose website says: “We will only apply to the courts to make a person or company insolvent as a final course of action, after we have considered all other ways to recover a debt.”

A spokesperson for Interior Architecture Landscape, through its accountancy firm, said the HMRC winding-up petition arose from a dispute that had now been settled.

He said the company’s ultimate beneficial owner was stated by Companies House, and that the 2024 accounts figure for its assets did not reflect this year’s accounts which were yet to be filed. The spokesperson said the company had a wide range of clients, and that its use of stock images was for illustrative purposes only, which he said was common practice across the design and architecture sector. He also said the firm had no links to the British Virgin Islands.

Reform UK has been raising substantial amounts of money since rising in popularity. It has been given £500,000 by Candy, a property developer and the party’s honorary treasurer, and more than £400,000 from the party’s policy chief, Zia Yusuf.

Other major contributors include Fiona Cottrell, the mother of Farage’s close aide George Cottrell, who has given £750,000, and billionaire Bassim Haidar, a former Tory donor who has given £225,000.

Reform’s other donations this summer included £100,000 from Johan Christofferson, a hedge fund manager and foxhunting enthusiast who previously gave money to Boris Johnson, and £50,000 from R20, an investment vehicle linked to property tycoon Robert Tchenguiz, another former Conservative donor.

Farage’s party also accepted £100,000 from Greybull Capital which bought struggling British Steel in 2019 before selling it to the Chinese company Jingye later that year.