In a Birmingham conference room meant to celebrate momentum, Reform UK found itself instead accounting for a conversation its leader says he did not hear — one in which senior officials apparently entertained routing half a million dollars from an American donor through British channels in violation of electoral law. Nigel Farage, the party's defining figure, insists he was canvassing and not listening when the scheme was discussed, a posture that raises the oldest question in political life: how much does a leader bear responsibility for what unfolds in his name? With police now weighing whet