Back in February this year, the Raffles Hotel in Whitehall hosted what turned out to be one of the most interesting book launches of the year.
It was the book co-authored by George Cottrell, a convicted criminal and close friend and confidante of Nigel Farage, rather ironically entitled How to Launder Money – a crime he was actually convicted of in the US.
Few people will have heard of Mr Cottrell back then, but he is now at the centre of the latest scandal to envelop Mr Farage and his party, Reform UK.
Now firmly in the headlines, the convicted criminal, known to his friends as “Posh George”, could well be the catalyst to the end of Mr Farage’s bid to become prime minister.
After all, it is a proverb as old as St Paul 2,000 years ago that people are judged by the company that they keep.
In recent history, we have seen that the political careers of leaders have not always ended as a result of personal failures or misconduct – but sometimes because of the people they chose to appoint to key positions, or have in their inner circle.
Just ask Sir Keir Starmer and Boris Johnson.
Sir Keir’s time as prime minister is coming to an end in no small part because of the scandal involving the appointment of Lord Peter Mandelson to the UK’s most important diplomatic role – ambassador to the US.
The prior warnings about Lord Mandelson – including the failure to pass security checks, his alleged associations with China and Russia and his friendship with convicted paedophile Jeffrey Epstein – all left major questions about Sir Keir’s judgement.
With Mr Johnson, people forget that it was not the cake-eating during lockdown or even the Partygate allegations which finally prompted his downfall. Instead, it was his decision to promote Chris Pincher to being deputy chief whip – despite past warnings about his behaviour – that proved to be the last straw when he was accused of groping again.
The same questions are now being asked about Mr Farage and Posh George.
Just to be clear, Mr Cottrell is not some fringe figure or mere acquaintance in Mr Farage’s political life. The 32-year-old aristocrat is one of the tightest members of the Reform leader’s inner circle.
At that book launch, almost all of the major figures connected to Reform were there – Mr Farage, deputy leader Richard Tice, Gorton and Denton candidate Matthew Goodwin, policy guru James Orr and others.
Posh George was holding court in his usual urbane and charming way, very much embracing his role as a gentleman crook. In fact, there was a suggestion that his interest in Victorian popular fiction had helped him choose the location.
The Raffles Hotel shares the name of the hero of E. W. Hornung’s books about a gentleman thief called A. J. Raffles.
Mr Cottrell told The Independent at the time: “I realise people will see the title of the book and draw assumptions, but it is meant as a warning of how easy it is to launder money.”
It was not just this event that clearly highlighted Mr Cottrell’s links to Reform. He has been a figure close to Mr Farage for a long time.
Mr Cottrell was in Clacton for the general election campaign in 2024 when Mr Farage won his first seat.
Allies of Mr Farage were warning him as far back as 2016 that Posh George would be a problem and he should disassociate himself – but he is incredibly loyal to those who are loyal to him.
Now, an investigation by The Sunday Times has claimed that Posh George was paying for security and involved in Reform’s campaigning, as well as providing accommodation for Mr Farage at his expensive town house near Buckingham Palace. Mr Farage has claimed he is the victim of an “establishment hit job” and insisted he had committed “no wrongdoing”.
The location is an interesting one given that Mr Cottrell’s mother, the Honourable Fiona Watson, daughter of Rupert Watson, 3rd Baron Manton, is a former girlfriend of King Charles. He reportedly nicknamed her “Yum Yum”.
But if you need to highlight how close Mr Cottrell is to Mr Farage you only need to read The Bad Boys of Brexit – the book about the 2016 EU referendum and its aftermath – written by the Reform leader’s two close allies and friends Arron Banks and Andy Wigmore.
The entry for 25 July 2016, three days after the US authorities arrested Cottrell, is revealing.
“Nasty shock today as Nigel got Posh George’s full rap sheet! It’s not pretty he’s being indicted on 21 counts of crimes including money laundering, wire fraud and blackmail.”
It notes how Mr Cottrell, a crypto gambler, had been caught in an FBI sting operation where he agreed to launder drugs money and then tried to blackmail the people who had approached him.
The entry concludes: “A sad time for everyone involved. He is very young, and I suspect he has been caught up in something way over his head. Never a dull moment!”
Despite this, Mr Farage appears to have stuck by his young criminal friend as he went from being involved in UKIP to the Brexit Party and now Reform UK.
Indeed, on some evenings when you wander through Westminster and pass the Westminster Arms where the Reform crowd like to hang out, have a pint and smoke outside, it is not unusual to find Posh George at the centre of the group.
But now, with Reform on the slide and other questions about Mr Farage’s personal finances and donations from crypto billionaire Chris Harborne – Mr Farage denies any wrongdoing and says the donations were purely private – the presence of Mr Cottrell in his inner circle could prove as fatal as Mandelson was for Starmer and Pincher was for Johnson.
