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."

Nigel Farage's most controversial moments Show all 12 1 /12 Nigel Farage's most controversial moments Nigel Farage's most controversial moments When he unveiled that 'breaking point' poster during the referendum Mr Farage was accused of deploying “Nazi-style propaganda” when he unveiled a poster showing Syrian refugees travelling to Europe under the next “Breaking point”. Users on social media were quick to compare the advert to a Nazi propaganda film with similar visuals and featuring Jewish refugees. The poster was particularly controversial because it was unveiled the morning of the killing of Labour MP Jo Cox Rex Nigel Farage's most controversial moments When he said he’d be concerned if his neighbours were Romanian In May 2014 Mr Farage was accused of a “racial slur” against Romanians after he suggested he would be concerned living next to a house of them. “I was asked if a group of Romanian men moved in next to you, would you be concerned? 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We’ll see how long his resignation lasts this time AP/Matt Dunham Nigel Farage's most controversial moments When he blamed immigrants for making him late Mr Farage turned up late to a £25-a-head ‘meet the leader’ style event in Port Talbot, Wales in December 2014. Asked why he was late, he blamed immigrants. “It took me six hours and 15 minutes to get here - it should have taken three-and-a-half to four,” he said. “That has nothing to do with professionalism, what it does have to do with is a country in which the population is going through the roof chiefly because of open-door immigration and the fact that the M4 is not as navigable as it used to be” Getty Nigel Farage's most controversial moments When he wanted to ban immigrants with HIV from Britain Mr Farage has used his platform as Ukip leader call for people with HIV to be banned from coming to Britain. Asked in an interview with Newsweek Europe in October 2014 who he thought should be allowed to come to the UK, he said: “People who do not have HIV, to be frank. That’s a good start. And people with a skill.” He also repeated similar comments in the 2015 general election leadership debates Getty Nigel Farage's most controversial moments When he defended the use of a racial slur against Chinese people Defending one of Ukip’s candidates, who used the word “ch**ky” to describe a Chinese person, Mr Farage said: “If you and your mates were going out for a Chinese, what do you say you're going for?" When he was told by the presented that he “honestly would not” use the slur, Mr Farage replied: “A lot would” Lintao Zhang/Getty Images Nigel Farage's most controversial moments When he said parts of Britain were ‘like a foreign land’ The Ukip leader used his 2014 conference speech to declare parts of Britain as being “like a foreign land”. He told his audience in Torquay that parts of the country were “unrecognisable” because of the number of foreigners there. Mr Farage has also previously said he felt uncomfortable when people spoke other language on a train Screengrab Nigel Farage's most controversial moments When he said the British army should be deployed to France At the height of trouble at Britain’s Calais border Mr Farage proposed a novel solution. 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He added: "Or perhaps sit in the corner, or whatever it might be” AFP/Getty Images Nigel Farage's most controversial moments When he said the gender pay gap exists because women are ‘worth less’ At a Q&A on the European Union in January 2014 Mr Farage said there was no discrimination against women causing the gender pay gap. Instead, he said, women were paid less because they were simply “worth far less” than many of their male counterparts. “A woman who has a client base, has a child and takes two or three years off - she is worth far less to her employer when she comes back than when she went away because that client base won't be stuck as rigidly to her portfolio,” he said Getty Nigel Farage's most controversial moments When he said he actually couldn’t guarantee £350m to the NHS after Brexit During the EU referendum campaign the Leave side pledged to spend £350 million a week on the National Health Service – claiming that this is what the UK sends to Brussels. Nigel Farage didn’t speak out against this figure and also pledged to spend EU cash on the health service and other public services himself. Then the day of the election result he suddenly changed his tone, saying he couldn’t guarantee the cash for the NHS and that to pledge to do so was “a mistake” Getty

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.”