Our spies are watching as Reform faces a tsunami of sleaze claims. Why? Because they claim the trail could lead back to the Kremlin: DAN HODGES

By DAN HODGES, DAILY MAIL COLUMNIST Published: 22:19, 11 July 2026 | Updated: 22:28, 11 July 2026 On September 26, 2025, Nathan Gill, the former Reform leader in Wales, pleaded guilty to eight counts of bribery, following an extensive investigation by the Metropolitan Police's Counter Terrorism Command. Gill had received £40,000 in payments from a pro-Russian Ukrainian politician, Oleh Voloshyn – once described by the US government as a 'pawn' of Russian secret services – to make statements that would 'benefit Russia regarding events in Ukraine'. Following his conviction, Nigel Farage expressed his shock: 'I'd known this person for a very long time. I knew him in the European Parliament in the Ukip days to be a God-fearing Christian, somebody you would think was the least corruptible person that you would know.' At which point the story basically died. Gill was, in Farage's own words, just one 'rotten apple'. Voloshyn was just one crazy Ukrainian. There was nothing much more to see. Except suddenly there is. Over the course of the past week, Farage's party has been consumed by a blizzard of fresh allegations, prompting him to resign his seat and take his case to the people of Clacton (with a man dressed as a bin in tow). Fresh revelations emerged about his relationship with 'Posh George' Cottrell, a convicted fraudster, who gave the Reform leader a series of donations in kind in the run-up to the 2024 election, which were not declared to the parliamentary authorities. It then emerged that the Metropolitan Police had opened an investigation into Reform's Treasury spokesman Robert Jenrick and donations he had received during his 2024 Tory leadership bid. Then it was reported that a fresh police investigation had been launched into two separate £250,000 donations made by Cottrell's mother to Reform back in 2024. Reform UK's former leader in Wales, Nathan Gill, was jailed for over ten years after pleading guilty to eight counts of bribery last year This week the Metropolitan Police said it had opened an investigation into donations to Robert Jenrick's 2024 Tory leadership campaign All of those involved strenuously denied the claims. Jenrick responded by declaring them 'entirely false, but it is no surprise that an establishment determined to stop Reform from delivering the change that this country so desperately needs would resort to making these demonstrably untrue claims'. To be fair, he's right. The British law enforcement and security establishment are indeed targeting Reform. For good reason. 'Yes, Reform have been on our radar for a while now, and before that Ukip,' one senior source in the British security and intelligence community told me. 'It's primarily because of the way the Russians have been attempting to infiltrate them. Gill wasn't an isolated case.' An example of this relates to Gill's 'handler' Voloshyn, who was himself being managed by a key ally of Vladimir Putin called Vladislav Surkov. Nicknamed 'the Grey Cardinal', Surkov was in charge of Putin's destabilisation operations in the West. 'Surkov had a list of Western politicians who were deemed to be potentially sympathetic to Russia, and Gill was on it,' a second security services source told me. 'But he wasn't alone. So was another Reform MEP.' George Cottrell pictured with Nigel Farage. The Reform leader took a series of donations from the convicted fraudster in the lead-up to the last general election A separate reason Reform may have come to the attention of the British law and order and security establishment is via Cottrell's links to the former Iron Curtain state of Montenegro. Cottrell is based there, and has been visited by Farage and other members of the senior Reform leadership. While there is no suggestion that Cottrell is involved in such activities, the state is also regarded by UK officials as a major hub for money laundering, people trafficking and – crucially – Russian intelligence operations. As another figure close to the intelligence community told me: 'Montenegro sits at the sweet spot for the Russians. It's heavily integrated with a lot of major EU and Western institutions. 'But like a lot of the former Soviet states, until recently it's been relatively slow to build up effective regulatory functions. So it's a bit of a crossroads for the intelligence community. Theirs and ours.' Last August, Sir Richard Moore, who was then the head of MI6, travelled to Montenegro to meet the country's prime minister, Milojko Spajic, and the Montenegrin national security director, Ivica Janovic. According to a security services source with knowledge of the meeting: 'The issue of attempted Russian destabilisation and penetration efforts in the UK was discussed.' This Bond-like skulduggery will inevitably be seized upon by Reform supporters as proof of a vast establishment stitch-up. Then-MI6 boss Sir Richard Moore travelled to Montenegro in August last year to meet the country's prime minister and national security director But as one UK law enforcement official told me: 'Look, Montenegro is at the centre for a lot of dodgy stuff that directly impacts people here in the UK. Of course it's going to be of interest to us.' For all Reform's protestations of innocence, the allegations of sleaze – and worse – keep mounting. Meanwhile, the party's various self-pitying conspiracy theories keep falling down. The reality is Gill was indeed an agent of Russian influence. And it stretches credibility to breaking point to believe Putin's vast intelligence apparatus was solely focused on a single, obscure MEP from Llangefni. Then there is 'Posh George', who sits at the centre of the current Reform sleaze storm. He was not initially a person of interest to the UK intelligence services, but first came to the attention of law and order agencies in the United States. Cottrell was initially arrested in Chicago in 2016, following an operation launched by Federal agents who had been posing as international drug dealers. As one security service source said: 'What's supposed to have been going on? 'We're meant to have all got into a room – the FBI, US immigration, the US State Department, the Foreign Office, the Met, MI6 – and said, "I know, how can we set up this completely obscure, innocent guy from Gloucestershire?"' Which leads to the key point that undermines Reform's grand conspiracy narrative. Nigel Farage's Reform are 'sinking beneath a tsunami of sleaze', writes Dan Hodges The Federal operation that cornered Cottrell began in 2014. That was two years before Brexit. A full decade before Farage stunned the political establishment by storming into Parliament and soaring to the top of the polls. To construct this masterful operation to – in Jenrick's words – 'Stop Reform from delivering the change that this country so desperately needs' – the British security establishment didn't just have to be Machiavellian, they had to be psychic. 'We haven't been tracking Ukip and Reform,' one senior security official explained.  'We've been tracking the Russians tracking Ukip and Reform. 'In the beginning, Putin thought they were just a useful potential asset in his disruption and propaganda efforts, which is why they targeted Gill. It's only in the last 18 months that they've seriously started to regard them as a potential party of government.' Now, thanks in part to the events of the last week, that prospect is rapidly diminishing. Reform are sinking beneath a tsunami of sleaze. And as they do Britain's security establishment is indeed watching. It would be an abdication of their vow to protect our nation's security if they were not.