How Nigel Farage’s prediction of EU referendum defeat 'helped make some Brexit backers a lot of money’

New book claims Ex-Ukip leader’s prediction of a Remain victory ‘moved the market’ and was made despite him being told of polls saying Leave would win

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Nigel Farage’s premature and erroneous concession of defeat to the Remain side on EU referendum night helped some of his supporters make a “small fortune” on the money markets, it has been claimed.

Mr Farage’s remark to a reporter, early on the night of June 23, that it “looks like Remain will edge it” was allegedly made despite him having already been made aware of the results of a “huge” final poll of 10,000 people predicting a Leave victory, and having been told of an exit poll for financial institutions saying the same thing.

It is claimed the then-Ukip leader’s apparent concession – made in the face of the poll findings - helped ‘move the market’ so the value of the pound rallied and world markets rose in anticipation of a Remain victory.

Then when the actual results started coming in the pound collapsed, as did the value of shares in companies expected to be hurt by Brexit. This rise and sudden collapse of the markets allowed investors who had ‘shorted’ the pound and shares – effectively betting on Brexit and a falling pound and share values – to make a lot of money.

The Brexit-supporting hedge fund manager Crispin Odey made £220 million and was filmed by a BBC documentary crew saying: “The morning has gold in its mouth.” Mr Farage's director of communications in Brussels, Hermann Kelly, reportedly earned £9,500 by shorting the pound against the dollar on referendum night to double his money after five hours.

But questioned about the sequence of events for a new book by Sunday Times political editor Tim Shipman, Mr Farage insisted his premature concession had been the result of genuine pessimism.

He laughed off the suggestion it had been part of a cunning ploy to help make a lot of money for those who had shorted the markets in the hope of a Brexit victory.

Mr Farage told Mr Shipman: “No, no, no, no. I wasn't shorting it — I should have done!"

Mr Farage said the only bet he placed on Brexit was £1,000 at a Ladbrokes shop at the start of June, which won him £2,500.

Explaining why he had genuine doubts about a Brexit victory, he pointed out that other polls had suggested Remain would win.

“They were split,” he said. “There were people using the conventional polling companies, who believed that Remain was ahead. But there was another group who genuinely thought that Leave had won it. I didn't know what to think."

He added: “I got eleventh-hour nerves. I had felt the day before the referendum that we probably were going to do it, and then on the day itself I thought we probably weren't going to do it."

In his book, Shipman describes how on referendum night Mr Farage and about 20 others including multimillionaire Ukip donor Arron Banks had gathered at the Westminster home of the Ukip leader’s adviser Chris Bruni-Lowe.

By that time, they reportedly had the results of a final poll from Gerry Gunster, Mr Banks' American political consultant, which combined social media metrics with traditional methods.

Mr Banks told Shipman: “We had it just after lunchtime. It had been running for three days and predicted [accurately] that Leave would win 52-48. It was a huge poll. That's what gave me confidence – it was 10,000 people. So we knew it was likely to be more accurate than the others, because of the sheer size of it."

But, Shipman says, Mr Farage refused to believe the poll, telling Mr Banks “I think it's going to be a very narrow loss for us”.

Minutes after the polling booths shut at 10pm, Mr Farage took a call from a TV news reporter on his mobile and told him: “It's been an extraordinary referendum campaign, turnout looks to be exceptionally high, and [it] looks like Remain will edge it.”

This allegedly prompted a furious Mr Banks to demand: “Why the hell did you say that? The first result hasn't come out yet."

Mr Farage, it is said, replied: “Oh, I have to condition expectations."

Shipman reports that Banks later observed: “He had to do nothing.”

According to Shipman, Mr Farage had also been told by Mr Bruni-Lowe about at least one of the private exit polls done at 600 polling stations for "10 different financial institutions and hedge funds that wanted the best information money could buy in order to construct their trading positions".

Mr Bruni-Lowe recalled: "Someone I know was doing some quite serious exit polls. They said, 'Yeah, Leave are gonna win'. I told Nigel. He was like, 'Really?' I was like, 'Yes, we're going to win.'"

Mr Bruni-Lowe said that following the early concession, he was called by people familiar with the private polls, asking him: “Why the hell did he [Mr Farage] say that? You're going to win easily.”

Describing the impact of Mr Farage’s premature prediction of defeat, Mr Bruni-Lowe, said it was his opinion that: “Nigel moved the market so much by doing that, that basically a lot of people got a lot of money.”

Mr Bruni-Lowe stressed, however: “I don't think it was on purpose. I think he genuinely didn't believe what I was telling him. The market moved to such an extraordinary extent that people made an astronomical sum of money on it."