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Reform UK’s internal inquiry into alleged foreign donations, which found no breach of electoral law, was conducted by a British barrister who represented US President Donald Trump in failed litigation over the Trump–Russia dossier.
Adam Richardson has also acted personally for the party’s leader, Nigel Farage, and worked with Dan Jukes, a subject of the Reform inquiry, on selecting candidates for the party.
The dossier, produced by former MI6 spy Christopher Steele, had collated information suggesting that Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign secretly colluded with Russian officials. It was not meant for public consumption, but was leaked to the press in 2017.
Richardson conducted the internal review along with Reform’s general secretary, Tom Waterhouse. Their 27-page report was published weeks after an undercover investigation into James Orr and Dan Jukes, two of Farage’s closest aides, seemed to show the two soliciting unlawful foreign donations.
In response to Byline Times, Reform UK confirmed that Richardson acts as legal advisor to the party and has an “existing client-barrister relationship with Reform UK”, but denied that this “compromises the independence of his assessment of electoral law in the internal report.”
As the party’s secretary, Richardson is one of a small group of Reform UK officials with final approval over its parliamentary candidates, alongside Dan Jukes. Years earlier, he had acted for Cambridge Analytica, the political consulting firm which harvested personal Facebook data for micro-targeting voters during major US electoral campaigns, and which had provided preliminary support for the campaign to leave the European Union.
His brother, Matthew Richardson, was involved in 2015 discussions over a proposed arrangement between UKIP, Cambridge Analytica and the campaign group Leave.EU. Parliamentary testimony identifies Matthew as the lawyer of Robert Mercer, the Trump megadonor behind Trump’s first presidency, who also invested in Cambridge Analytica.
The undercover investigation into Reform UK by the non-profit reporting project Verbatim was broadcast by Channel 4 News in September. Reporters posing as a US financier and his UK-based son discussed a possible £500,000 donation to Reform and separately paid £32,500 for three opinion polls. Orr and Jukes denied wrongdoing and stepped back from their roles.
Reform UK is currently the subject of a criminal investigation by the Metropolitan Police due to the allegations.
The Trump-Russia Dossier
Adam Richardson previously represented Donald Trump in appeal proceedings against Orbis Business Intelligence, founded by Christopher Steele, the former head of MI6’s Russia desk. Steele had compiled a dossier of raw intelligence alleging links between Trump’s presidential campaign and the Russian Government. The dossier had originally been commissioned as ‘opposition research’ by the Hillary Clinton presidential campaign, and was meant for further investigation rather than public consumption.
Denying the allegations in the Steele dossier, Trump sued under data-protection law, but the High Court dismissed his claim in February 2024, and permission to appeal was refused. Trump subsequently failed to pay an interim £290,000 costs bill before being ordered to pay Orbis more than £626,000 in legal costs, which remains unpaid. Adam Richardson later also acted for Donald Trump in related professional-negligence proceedings against Trump’s former law firm, Level Law.
Prime Minister Andy Burnham told the podcast The Rest Is Politics that when he asked Downing Street officials about Russian interference in the 2016 referendum to leave the European Union: “I’ve had the clear answer that yes, there was.” The Government has since said that though the interference occurred, it was “not successful”.
Richardson’s Ties to Farage and Reform
Reform UK leader Nigel Farage was himself Adam Richardson’s client in respect of unpaid election expenses.
That personal instruction raises a question about how the Richardson inquiry established what Farage knew about the donations arranged by Jukes and Orr. The report by Richardson and Waterson identified no interview with Farage, nor any account obtained from him, despite reaching conclusions about his lack of knowledge of the payments.
Farage had met the reporters posing as donors over oysters and wine in Clacton. During the recorded meeting, he praised the polling: “It worked. Boom.” After the Channel 4 broadcast, he denied that Reform UK had taken illegal money and said the polls had benefited the party, but had not been commissioned by it.
While Reform UK had said its internal inquiry would proceed “independently and without prejudice”, Adam Richardson’s involvement with the party has extended to helping select its parliamentary candidates alongside Dan Jukes, one of the two aides whose conduct he later reviewed.
In May 2026, The Spectator had identified Adam Richardson and Dan Jukes among a small group authorised to give prospective candidates final approval, describing Richardson as Reform UK’s party secretary and Jukes as Farage’s chief of staff. The account placed both men in the party’s candidate-approval machinery months before the donations inquiry.
Years earlier, Richardson stood for UKIP in the North West at the 2019 European elections. His candidate biography described several years as a senior party official.
A number of other senior Reform UK figures have been his clients, including Dame Andrea Jenkyns, the party’s Mayor of Greater Lincolnshire; Sarah Pochin, the party’s MP for Runcorn and Helsby; and parliamentary candidate Matthew Goodwin (over campaign leaflets missing legally required printer and promoter details).
Richardson also represented Reform 2025 Ltd in a case to determine whether a parliamentary candidate qualified as an employee.
The Richardson Brothers and Cambridge Analytica
The Richardson brothers’ connections to Farage’s political world extend back to Cambridge Analytica, the political consulting company financed by Trump megadonor Robert Mercer.
Before the Brexit referendum, Matthew Richardson, a former senior UKIP official, helped develop proposed arrangements between Cambridge Analytica, UKIP and the Leave.EU campaign. Emails published by Parliament show that, in November 2015, Cambridge Analytica executive Julian Wheatland told colleagues Matthew was working out the contractual structure between the three organisations.
Wheatland had asked whether Cambridge Analytica could disclose that it had analysed UKIP membership and survey data. “I would rather we didn’t, to be honest,” Matthew replied, saying he would discuss the matter with Leave.EU communications director Andy Wigmore.
Matthew also had professional and personal connections to the family financing the company. Cambridge Analytica whistleblower Christopher Wylie identified him as “Robert Mercer’s lawyer” in parliamentary testimony in March 2018.
A 2024 High Court judgment records that Mercer’s daughter, Rebekah, relied on “her friend” Matthew’s account of the Channel 4 News broadcast exposing Cambridge Analytica chief executive Alexander Nix.
Adam Richardson’s involvement concerned the subsequent regulatory scrutiny and the company’s collapse. As UKIP’s party secretary, he answered questions from the Information Commissioner investigating political data practices, including services provided to UKIP by Leave.EU. The judge later described one of his answers as “curt and unhelpful”.
Adam then represented UKIP in its unsuccessful 2019 appeal against the regulator’s formal demand for information. Separately, he obtained an administration order for companies within the Cambridge Analytica group following its collapse.
Matthew’s relationship with Rebekah Mercer subsequently extended to Parler, the far-right social media platform she backed. Its former chief executive, John Matze, alleged in a court complaint that she appointed Matthew as one of her designated managers for the platform in July 2020.
Byline Times has previously documented Matthew Richardson’s role as executive director of the Young Britons’ Foundation, a conservative activist training organisation, before his move into UKIP. Both brothers were later advertised as speakers alongside Robert Jenrick, now a Reform MP and the party’s shadow chancellor, at a June 2025 conference organised by the Margaret Thatcher Centre.
The Dispute Over the Polling Payments
The review conducted by Adam Richardson with the party’s general secretary concluded that Dan Jukes had commissioned the polls personally as a contractor and that the party incurred no liability. It criticised the statements by Jukes and James Orr, and recommended changes to party procedures, but found that the proposed £500,000 donation had not been agreed or accepted.
Yet one passage in the report describes James Orr’s involvement in securing payment. The report reproduces a message in which Orr told the purported donor: “Your financial backing of that poll was a huge part of our campaign, so thank you.”
A Labour Party briefing seen by Byline Times has questioned how that account, relating the polls to Reform UK campaigning, could be reconciled with the finding that the polls were Jukes’s personal commissions.
“As a barrister with a specialism in election law, I value my professional relationships with clients from across the political spectrum and approach all instructions with the same independence required”, Adam Richardson told Byline Times. His brother Matthew did not respond to request for comment.
A spokesperson for Reform UK said: “Reform UK instructs Mr Richardson as a self-employed barrister in independent practice. The position of Party Secretary reflects his role as legal adviser to the Party.
“As with all practising barristers, Mr Richardson is subject to professional obligations requiring him to exercise independent judgment, irrespective of the identity of his client.
“We do not accept that his existing client-barrister relationship with Reform UK compromises the independence of his assessment of electoral law in the internal report.”
Nafeez Ahmed is Head of Investigations at Byline Times
Excellent research and analysis that joins the dots of corruption and misconduct together.