Reform spent £350 on champagne at luxury lunch, election spending figures show

The Guardian

4 days ago

Reform UK footed the bill for a £350 bottle of champagne at a luxury lunch and a £989-a-night hotel with hundreds of pounds in room service, its election campaign spending data shows.
Receipts submitted to the Electoral Commission show instances of high spending at top London venues in the first half of last year.
During one £1,703 lunch at the Shard restaurant in May last year, about four diners enjoyed set-course meals, the £352 magnum of champagne, another £155 bottle of Veuve Clicquot, three 'girl in a glass' cocktails at £19.50 each, two £18 wines, a £24 gin and tonic, and an 18-year-old Glenfiddich whisky at £31.
In another £1,367 bill from June 2024, Reform paid for a single night's £989 stay at Sea Containers, a hotel on London's South Bank, plus £99 on 'dinner liquor' and £205 on room service and the minibar.
Asked whether members would be happy for their subscriptions to be spent on such luxury items, party sources said the expenses were not incurred by Farage, his chair David Bull, or any other senior party figures, but were racked up by someone who has now left the party.
The spending data also shows that Reform was billed more than £200,000 in the run-up to the election for services provided by a company co-owned by Bull, who was then deputy leader.
The invoices from Bull's company, Oak Hall Studios, also included consultancy fees of £8,000 for June during the election campaign including advice on strategy and campaigning and a monthly retainer of £1,000.
'Oak Hall Studios provided live-streaming services for the party and allowed us to reach millions of voters throughout the general election campaign. It is a private limited company with shareholders. Like any other business it has contractors, suppliers and expenses such as trucks and camera operators,' a Reform spokesperson said.
Other items of national expenditure included a £1,000 invoice from a staff member for 'two weeks of contracted work campaigning in Boston and Skegness', Richard Tice's constituency and £1,500 for an apartment billed to his campaign manager.
Reform said it had been properly accounted for and that 'while they relate to activity in a particular constituency, the individuals named were working for the central party campaign under the direction of Reform UK HQ, rather than for Richard Tice as a candidate'.
'Their activity supported national campaign infrastructure, media coordination, and message consistency, rather than localised electoral matters. Accordingly, the expenses were incurred by or on behalf of the party for the purposes of promoting the party more generally in the election, and not in connection with the election of a particular candidate.'
The spokesperson added: 'Richard was the deputy leader at the time and required staff to attend to him as well. Any overlap was correctly apportioned in the returns.
Likewise, Reform said a £258 bill for campaign staff accommodation costs at JGS Hotels in Clacton was properly apportioned as national spending.
'This accommodation cost relates to national campaign personnel engaged by the central party. It was incurred for Reform UK staff working across multiple locations, and not by or on behalf of Nigel Farage in his capacity as a candidate,' the party said. 'Nigel is the party leader and therefore staff are often required to be proximate to him. As such, it falls correctly within the national return. The cost was not incurred or authorised by the candidate or his agent, and there is no evidence of it being used to promote Nigel Farage specifically rather than the party more broadly nationally.'
Reform spent much less than the two major parties during the election, with its spending matching the Liberal Democrats' at about £5.5m.
The Conservatives spent £23m, while Labour outspent all the other parties by some distance on £30m.