Farage, Bardella Sign Migration Pact; Reform UK Aides Resign Amid Funding Probe

Nigel Farage, leader of Britain's Reform UK party, and Jordan Bardella, leader of France's National Rally, signed a Memorandum of Understanding on Friday at the Reform UK annual conference in Birmingham.

The pact aims to stop small boat crossings, with Bardella promising that a National Rally government would allow Britain to return asylum seekers arriving from France to France. The agreement outlines that asylum seekers arriving in Britain from France would be detained and returned to France, which would then repatriate them to their countries of origin, and establishes a mechanism for sharing border security costs.

The conference was overshadowed by allegations of electoral law breaches, leading to the stepping down of two senior Farage aides, James Orr and Dan Jukes, on Friday morning. An undercover investigation by Verbatim, broadcast by Channel 4 News, alleged Orr and Jukes conspired to accept illegal donations, arranging for a US company to pay over £30,000 for three opinion polls commissioned by Reform UK, which British law bans.

Video evidence suggested Farage was aware of the polling payment and the plan to funnel money through a US donor's UK-based son. Farage claimed he didn't give it a second thought when offered an illegal £500,000 donation and insisted the party had taken no illegal money and broken no laws. First Minister John Swinney and the governing Labour Party called for a police probe, and the Electoral Commission is considering all relevant information. Reform UK announced an internal investigation and claimed it was the victim of a hoax by foreign-funded, climate change activists.