Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg has told Nigel Farage he should admit to making an administrative error by failing to declare a £5 million gift from crypto billionaire Christopher Harborne.
Speaking on GB News he said: “I’m very concerned. First of all, I don’t think lay members should have a vote in a House of Commons committee. This is the House of Commons, the highest legislative body in our land. There is no body that can regulate the House of Commons other than the House of Commons.
“And it seems to me the voters have already decided. So I don’t think those seven lay members should have votes. And you’ve exposed two of them, who are basically hard left sympathisers.
“When I was Leader of the House, I rejected somebody who had been put forward from the far left, who wanted to be on the standards committee.
“Lay members should be politically impartial. They shouldn’t be people who have campaigned against Brexit or in favour of illegal immigration, so that’s clearly improper.
“And then I was astonished by the list of MPs that you read out because I’m afraid I’d only heard of one of them. Now it used to be the case that members of the Standards Committee were senior backbenchers, people who could look at these matters from a parliamentary point of view rather than a party political point of view, and the names you read out are not of people like that.
“They’re people who got in perhaps in 2024, have very little parliamentary experience, know very little about the system. I don’t think this is the right body to be judging Nigel.
“I think if it’s judged by anybody, it should go to the floor of the House. It should be decided by the Commons as a whole. But more importantly, still, haven’t the voters of Clacton just come to their conclusion?
“And I hope Daniel Greenberg, who I think is a good man, a decent man, very intelligent man, fearsomely intelligent man, will come to a more sensible conclusion and will bypass this committee, which he is able to do.
“If Nigel is sensible, and you said he denied all the allegations. Well, not quite; he said he may have failed to send in a bit of paper. And my experience of standards is, if you admit you’ve made an administrative mistake, usually people accept that.
“And I think that Nigel did make an administrative mistake. He probably should have sent him the bit of paper, and if he’s wise, he’ll say that to Daniel Greenberg, and with a bit of like that will finish it.
“Because it seems to me the voters have clacked and have already given him a vote of confidence.”
