Labour warned Nigel Farage on Monday that he has 24 hours to report his claim that his phone was hacked by Russia-linked actors, or face a complaint to police and national security authorities from the party itself. Anna Turley said the matter was one “in the public and national interest” and insisted that, if Farage really believes his phone was compromised, it must be handed to the proper authorities for a full investigation.
Turley said the alleged hack, if true, would amount to a serious cybercrime and a potential hostile-state operation directed at the leader of a British political party. She told Farage in writing that “it is therefore essential that any evidence of hostile-state hacking or foreign interference is placed in the hands of the proper authorities, so that it can be fully and independently investigated.” Her warning added that if confirmation was not received within 24 hours that the matter had been reported to police, Labour would do it instead.
The intervention follows Farage’s own account, published on Sunday, that foreign state actors, most likely serving Moscow, had accessed his phone and leaked information about a £5m gift from Christopher Harborne, a cryptocurrency billionaire based in Thailand. Farage first said the money had been intended to pay for his security, then later said it was a reward for his campaigning on Brexit. The donation was made before the 2024 general election, before he announced he would stand as a candidate, and at a time when he was not an MP.
Farage has argued that because he was not in parliament when he received the money, it was a personal matter and did not need to be declared. But the original disclosure of the undeclared £5m gift has kept the issue alive, and his later claim that a hostile state was behind the leak only intensified the scrutiny. According to Reform sources quoted in the Mail on Sunday, he handed over his phone for forensic analysis by counter-espionage experts after becoming suspicious about how the information emerged.
Those sources said the analysis concluded that a malware attack, most likely originating from Russia, had compromised his phone, email and bank accounts. That version of events was dismissed on Monday by Ciaran Martin, who called it “an entirely unsubstantiated claim and one without any merit.” Martin said it would be difficult to conclude that Russia was involved based on the examination of a phone, and said Farage should formally report what happened to the authorities.
The clash leaves Farage with a choice that is now bigger than the money itself. He can either put the hacking claim into the hands of police and cyber investigators, or keep defending a story that an ex-national cyber security chief says does not stand up. For a politician already under pressure over the £5m gift, the next move will decide whether the row remains a political argument or becomes a formal inquiry into alleged foreign interference.
