Andrew Bailey, the Governor of the Bank of England, said he would have considered putting off his meeting with Nigel Farage last September if the £5m gift from Christopher Harborne had already been under investigation. Bailey said he did not regret the meeting, which took place to discuss the Bank’s plans for cryptocurrency regulation.
The governor said the gift would have been “a material fact” in the Bank’s judgment. He added: “Whether I would have then said: ‘Well, I think we’d better wait until the investigation is done before we have the meeting’ – I think that would be a judgment we we would have taken at the time.”
Bank of England meeting
Bailey said the meeting with Farage was “a perfectly polite exchange of views” and said the Bank met political figures regularly and without favoritism. He also said the controversy would not change how the Bank booked and conducted meetings with political figures.
Last September’s discussion centered on cryptocurrency regulation. Bailey said Farage’s stance on the Bank of England was clear: “His argument, as I interpreted it, is that there is ‘an establishment’ and he presumably thinks that we’re part of it.”
Farage and stablecoin policy
Farage said he used the meeting to press the Bank of England to drop plans for a state-issued rival to a stablecoin issued by Tether. He also said he urged Bailey to abandon plans for a cap on how many stablecoins individuals in the UK could own, and the Bank later dropped that cap after a consultation.
Bailey said the Bank’s latest rules on stablecoins such as Tether had not been discussed with Farage. He said: “I don’t know where Nigel Farage is on that, or where we have got to now … I haven’t talked to him about it,” and added: “I do actually think we’re encouraging innovation, so I think we are doing the right thing there.”
Christopher Harborne gift inquiry
The £5m gift from Christopher Harborne was revealed by in April, and a parliamentary inquiry would be launched over the undisclosed gift from Farage’s wealthy benefactor. Harborne has made a large part of his estimated £18bn fortune from crypto, and he has provided two-thirds of Reform UK’s funding.
Farage has now been reported to the standards commissioner over whether he lobbied the Bank against parliamentary rules. That process, along with the parliamentary inquiry, will determine how the meeting and the gift are judged against the rules now under scrutiny.
