Nigel Farage has repeatedly refused to answer questions about a personal gift of £5m he received from the billionaire Christopher Harborne, as the Reform UK leader sought on Friday to focus attention on the party’s election gains.

Farage was clearly irritated when asked on a number of occasions on Friday about the money, which the Guardian revealed he had received shortly before announcing he would stand in the 2024 general election and which was not declared.

“Yeah yeah, well we’ll talk about that any other time that you’d like,” Farage said, when asked as he celebrated Reform’s capture of its first London council, in Havering.