Reform leader Nigel Farage can often be seen on the Kent coastline scouring the sea for small boats (while ostensibly representing a constituency in Essex) – but has anybody spotted him bobbing around in his own?

Back in April, as he was lambasting Keir Starmer over his government’s EU reset, Farage sought to place himself on the side of their fishermen by insisting he was one of their own. To the apparent surprise of GB News presenter Cristopher Chope, he said: “I’m the only member of Parliament that has a financial stake in the commercial fishing industry … I own a commercial fishing boat… I have a skipper who runs that boat.”

The claim is also surprising to the campaign group Hope Not Hate, who have embarked on their own fishing expedition into Farage’s claims. Because, as they discovered, his entry in Parliament’s register of members’ interests contains not a single reference to any angling assets.

Parliament’s rules say that MPs are required to register “any financial interest or other material benefit which a Member receives which might reasonably be thought by others to influence his or her actions, speeches or votes in Parliament”. This would most definitely include a “commercial fishing boat” even if, rowing back later, Farage claimed that he doesn’t make any money on it.

MPs are required to register their interests on an ongoing basis, providing a full disclosure at the start of their term and updating the register within 28 days of any change. It’s now been 56 days since he revealed his boat to GB News viewers. Perhaps parliamentary staffers need to borrow Farage’s binoculars and see if they can spot it!

Meanwhile in Nigel Farage transparency rules, it turns out that the house in Clacton he announced with much fanfare he had bought last year is registered in the name of… his girlfriend, not him.

Farage boasted last November that he had bought the detached property in his constituency following much criticism of the amount of time he was spending there. However, it has since emerged that it was bought solely in the name of Laure Ferrari, his long-time partner.

Asked by the Guardian why he had claimed to be the buyer, and whether the property had been bought in Ferrari’s name in a way that allowed him legally to avoid higher-rate stamp duty on the purchase of an additional residential house (given that he already owns a number of other properties), Farage said: “Whether I say ‘I’ or ‘we is pretty irrelevant. Laure bought the house; it is her asset. The main reason my name does not appear is for security reasons. I would have thought that obvious.” So that’s alright then!