Nigel Farage partner: Who is his girlfriend Laure Ferrari - after Reform leader admits he was wrong to say he had bought house in Clacton
Nigel Farage has said he misspoke when he said he bought a house in Clacton before the last election.
The Reform UK leader said last year he had bought a home in his Clacton constituency, but it was later reported that his partner had actually made the purchase. He told Sky News: “I should have said ‘we’. All right? My partner bought it, so what?”
He said it was “her money” and “her asset”. He added: “I own none of it. But I just happen to spend some time there. I should have rephrased it. I didn’t want … to put her in the public domain.”
Questions about the purchase have resurfaced after Angela Rayner resigned on Friday over underpaying stamp duty on a seaside flat she bought this year. Mr Farage said the resignation of the deputy prime minister “screams to entitlement” during his speech to the Reform UK party conference in Birmingham.
Mr Tice, the party deputy, was asked on Saturday whether Mr Farage would be transparent about his tax affairs and address questions over his partner buying the Clacton home. He told Times Radio: “I’m pleased to confirm I’m not his tax adviser. You’ll have to speak to them.
“It’s irrelevant to what voters are concentrating on, which is our messaging, which is the message of hope. We can get out of this nightmare that we’re in.”
Separately, Mr Farage has also reportedly been using a private company to reduce how much tax he pays on his GB News media appearances and other work outside being an MP. He has declared payments of more than £300,000 in the past year for hosting a show on the channel.
The Guardian reported that he diverts money earned from the show into his company, Thorn in the Side Ltd, meaning he paid only 25% corporation tax on profits rather than 40%. The use of personal service companies is not illegal but has been criticised in recent years.
When asked if he was using the company to pay less tax he told Sky News: “No, I’m using it legitimately because I run a company that has overheads”. A spokesperson for Mr Farage told The Guardian: “Thorn in the Side Ltd has traded for 15 years and has a variety of interests. It renders the services of several contractors and is a properly functioning company.”
Born in the French town of Epinal in 1979, Laure Ferrari studied English at the University of Strasbourg and was waitressing in the city when she met Nigel Farage. The former UKIP and Brexit Party leader was a member of the European Parliament (MEP) at the time and the pair got into a conversation.
She credited this meeting with sparking her desire to enter politics. That was in 2007, when she was 28. Now 44, she is 15 years his junior.
Ms Ferrari and Mr Farage have been linked since 2017, when reports emerged they were sharing a home. At the time, Mr Farage told The Mail On Sunday that Ms Ferrari was someone he had "known well for a long time" and he was helping her out because she needed somewhere to stay for a week.
It was a "working relationship", he said - refusing to answer questions about whether they had been intimate. The same year, the pair were pictured dancing together at a Brexit anniversary party.