A Liberal Democrat MP has referred Reform UK's deputy leader, Richard Tice, to parliament's standards watchdog over an undeclared loan of nearly £80,000 from George Cottrell, an aide to Nigel Farage. The move raises the possibility of a fresh inquiry into a Reform UK MP by the same commissioner whose separate investigation into Farage, over an undeclared £5m gift, is currently paused because Farage is no longer sitting as an MP.

Lisa Smart, a Lib Dem frontbencher, wrote to commissioner Daniel Greenberg alleging Tice broke MPs' conduct rules by failing to declare the £78,100 loan, which was paid in December 2024 into Tisun Investments Ltd, a company Tice directs, and was flagged to the National Crime Agency as a suspicious transaction partly because Cottrell was convicted of wire fraud in the US in 2017. Smart argues the loan appears to have been made on preferential terms and that Cottrell, tax-resident in Montenegro, may be an "impermissible donor" given his role as an official Reform UK/Farage adviser. Tice has said the money related to his property business rather than politics, and it appears he later repaid the sum via Tisun amid a series of large property-linked transactions, including a Dubai purchase and a £613,000 donation he made to Reform.