The most silent partner at the top of British politics has finally spoken publicly – but Laure Ferrari has only managed to cloud even further how she managed to cough up £885,000 for the house in his constituency that Nigel Farage ostensibly calls home.
The Reform leader claimed with no little fanfare last year to have bought a house in Clacton, hoping it would end criticism that he spent little time in the Essex town. Farage said he had exchanged contracts to buy the house in November 2024, four months after being elected.
But the following year it emerged that the detached property in the neighbouring town of Frinton-on-Sea was actually solely bought by Ferrari, his partner of some years, prompting questions over whether it had been bought in her name in a way that allowed Farage legally to avoid higher-rate stamp duty on the purchase of an additional residential house. He already owns a number of other properties.
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He suggested that she was able to afford to buy the four-bedroom home, which was bought without a mortgage, because she comes from a wealthy family. But last autumn, the BBC probed French property and company records and was unable to find evidence that Ferrari’s parents had the means to give their daughter a significant contribution towards the purchase of the home.
Her retired father owned a transport company which showed a deficit on its books at the time it was dissolved in 2020, while the apartment he owns with his wife in the suburbs of Strasbourg is estimated to be worth only around €300,000.
Now Ferrari herself, who ordinarily shuns the limelight, has given a rare interview to France’s Le Monde newspaper, refusing to confirm how she paid for the house – which came with four bedrooms and a heated swimming pool – and adding gnomically: “There’s more than one way to pay for a house”.
Le Monde reports that Ferrari “dodged the question” of “Did she buy her property thanks to a family inheritance?”
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“Yes and no, that would be a very large inheritance… there’s more than one way to pay for a house,” she told the paper, which says she “just barely made it clear that the money did not necessarily come from her parents”.
“I can’t say how much my grandmother gave, that’s my business,” Ferrari continued. “The main thing is that I paid all the taxes, there was no tax evasion, and the house is in my name.”
Once again, Farage’s finances are as clear as mud. Will the mainstream media, which has studiously ignored the £5 million donation handed personally to the Reform leader by a Thailand-based crypto investor, probe further?
Meanwhile, back in the Clacton constituency office in which Le Monde interviewed Ferrari, it is “empty except for a few Reform UK-branded products”, according to the paper, and “appeared not to have been used for weeks”.
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