India, July 7 -- Nigel Farage, the leader of Britain's insurgent Reform UK party, announced Tuesday that he is resigning his seat in Parliament in order to force a special election and seek re-election, an audacious gambit to clear his name as scrutiny mounts over millions of pounds in undisclosed gifts from wealthy backers.

The move, delivered in a televised statement from London that did not take questions, comes as Farage faces two separate inquiries by Parliament's standards watchdog, one over a £5 million ($6.7 million) gift from Thailand-based cryptocurrency investor Christopher Harborne, and a second, opened after a weekend report in The Sunday Times, into financial support he allegedly received from George Cottrell, a former...