The University of Cambridge has launched a probe into associate professor James Orr after he was alleged to have breached political donation rules while working for Reform UK.
Mr Orr stepped down as the Reform’s head of policy on Friday after claims he arranged to have polling paid for by an overseas company – an impermissible donor under electoral law – were revealed as part of an undercover investigation by Channel 4 and investigative group Verbatim .
A spokesperson for Cambridge University where Mr Orr is an associate professor of Philosophy of Religion at Cambridge’s Faculty of Divinity, said: “The university is looking into these matters.”
Mr Orr and a long-serving Nigel Farage aide, Dan Jukes, have stepped down and the party has launched an investigation following the allegations, which were broadcast as the party’s annual conference got underway in Birmingham.
Mr Jukes has denied any wrongdoing and said it was a case of entrapment, while Mr Farage has insisted “nothing illegal” had happened.
However, he did acknowledge that comments by Mr Orr and Mr Jukes were “injudicious at best”.
Asked about footage in which Mr Jukes appeared to say they had previously disguised donations from foreign sources, Mr Farage described it as “loose pub talk, including a couple of boasts that simply were not true”.
He added: “So in the video, when he says we’ve done it with X, we’ve done it with Y. Well, the reason that Channel 4 haven’t broadcast the names of X and Y is because it isn’t true.
“Donations from the names that were mentioned have not occurred, don’t exist… in our accounts.”
He also sought to distance himself from Mr Jukes and Mr Orr, dismissing them as “contractors that work for us, who’ve said… some injudicious things at best”.
Rival parties have reported Reform to the police over claims it took funding from a US firm for three polls it commissioned earlier this year, costing £32,500.
A theologian, Dr Orr has faced criticism for his policies and ideas, many of which have been influenced by Christian nationalism. For example, he has previously argued that marriage is best for children when it is between a man and a woman, as well as describing Britain’s abortion laws as “extreme”.
Before taking on the role of head of policy, Dr Orr told Reform’s conference last year that Britain should establish an equivalent to Donald Trump’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency.
Party chairman Lee Anderson has said there is “no chance” of either man returning to their role.
He told Sky News: “They’ve stepped down. They was told, you know, they had to step down, they have stepped down, and that’s got to be the right thing to do on the day, the first day of our conference.”
But Reform’s deputy leader Richard Tice was less definitive in later comments, telling BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “Let’s wait and see what the investigation says.”