{"id":486074,"date":"2025-10-09T16:21:28","date_gmt":"2025-10-09T16:21:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/486074\/"},"modified":"2025-10-09T16:21:28","modified_gmt":"2025-10-09T16:21:28","slug":"reforms-russian-asset-the-kremlin-shadow-over-nigel-farage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/486074\/","title":{"rendered":"Reform’s Russian ‘asset’ – the Kremlin shadow over Nigel Farage"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Nathan Gill \u2013 Russian asset<\/p>\n

On 26 September, former Welsh Brexit Party MEP and Reform UK official Nathan Gill pleaded guilty at the Old Bailey to eight counts of bribery for accepting payments for making pro-Russian statements in the European Parliament both on television and in public forums. He faces sentencing in November, and is widely expected to go to prison.<\/p>\n

This is most definitely not a fringe political scandal. It is a direct admission that Russian-aligned money penetrated Farage\u2019s immediate orbit during a pivotal chapter in Brexit.<\/p>\n

What Gill admitted<\/p>\n

Gill was tasked by Oleh Voloshyn, a Ukrainian politician later sanctioned by the U.S., for Kremlin-related activity, to push narratives favourable to Russia.<\/p>\n

Evidence of the payments and arrangements, made between December 2018 and July 2019, was uncovered after Gill was stopped at Manchester Airport in 2021, when investigators from the Metropolitan Police\u2019s counter-terrorism command found incriminating communications and contracts.<\/p>\n

A separate charge of conspiracy to commit bribery remains \u201con file\u201d (i.e., not proceeded with).<\/p>\n

Why this matters to Farage <\/p>\n

Gill was no political stray or lone actor. He followed Nigel Farage out of UKIP into the Brexit Party in December 2018, the very period he was receiving illicit payments.<\/p>\n

Farage had publicly backed Gill in earlier internal party disputes, calling him \u201chonest as the day is long.\u201d<\/p>\n

The timing is critical: from late 2018 through mid-2019, Gill was active in European campaigns and parliamentary debates that aligned closely with Russian strategic objectives.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Richard Tice told The Times in March he had \u201cnever met Nathan Gill\u201d<\/p>\n

Reform UK has scrambled to dissociate itself. Senior figures claim they \u201cnever really heard of the guy,\u201d and some suggest he was never formally a member.<\/p>\n

Richard Tice claimed that \u201cI have never met Nathan Gill, and he has never had anything to do with Reform\u201d only to be contradicted by photographic evidence from 2021.<\/p>\n

In fact, Gill was Reform UK\u2019s Welsh leader before leaving politics in 2021.<\/p>\n

Farage, Russia, and influence<\/p>\n

Farage\u2019s relationship with Russian media and narratives has long drawn criticism. He appeared repeatedly on RT (Russia Today), Moscow\u2019s propaganda arm. <\/p>\n

He has publicly praised Vladimir Putin as a shrewd operator and echoed Kremlin talking points on Ukraine, NATO, and European disunity. <\/p>\n

And Russian state media have amplified his messages during Brexit and beyond.<\/p>\n

His defence is simple: he denies taking Russian money, insists he has never visited Russia and brands allegations as \u201cfake news\u201d or a \u201cwitch hunt.\u201d <\/p>\n

Gill\u2019s conviction however exposes the material side of what many have long believed was only a rhetorical alignment.<\/p>\n

Political Fallout<\/p>\n

Defence Secretary John Healey has accused Farage and Reform UK of \u201clooking up to Putin\u201d and warned they cannot be trusted with national security.<\/p>\n

Welsh Labour have demanded answers, especially since Llyr Powell, Reform\u2019s candidate in the forthcoming Caerphilly by-election, previously worked for Gill.<\/p>\n

The central questions now remain: What did Farage know, if anything? Was Gill acting independently, or was he tolerated so long as his narratives served Brexit\u2019s interests?<\/p>\n

The takeaway<\/p>\n

Nathan Gill\u2019s bribery conviction is more than a scandal for a former MEP as it provides direct proof that Russian-tied payments bought influence in Farage\u2019s inner circle at the very moment the Brexit Party was on the ascent.<\/p>\n

The lack of a direct link to Farage doesn\u2019t erase the proximity, timing and narrative alignment. Reform UK may attempt to distance itself, but the factual record now shows that Gill\u2019s influence was literally bought and paid for.<\/p>\n

This is not an isolated corruption case. It is a warning that movements that thrive on grievance, populism and institutional distrust are especially vulnerable to foreign subversion. <\/p>\n

Farage may deny being in Moscow\u2019s pocket but in Nathan Gill, he stood shoulder to shoulder with someone who was. <\/p>\n

From Russia with love, so to speak.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Nathan Gill \u2013 Russian asset On 26 September, former Welsh Brexit Party MEP and Reform UK official Nathan…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":486075,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5226],"tags":[802,748,2000,299,5187,1699,4884,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-486074","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-brexit","8":"tag-brexit","9":"tag-britain","10":"tag-eu","11":"tag-europe","12":"tag-european","13":"tag-european-union","14":"tag-great-britain","15":"tag-uk","16":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115345128654412512","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/486074","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=486074"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/486074\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/486075"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=486074"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=486074"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=486074"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}