Reform UK could be approaching an “existential moment” as Nigel Farage faces a “crossroad” of issues, from a £5m gift scandal to the rise of Andy Burnham, experts have warned.
Mr Farage, known for his savvy media skills, suffered a disastrous set of TV and radio interviews last week as he became rattled and snappy over a £5m gift he received before becoming an MP. Reform UK was dealt its third loss in a key by-election the week before, with Mr Burnham storming to victory in Makerfield and the new hard-right party Restore also stealing votes.
Reform's popularity ceiling and internal recalibration
Insiders at Reform said they would “recalibrate” and “reset” over the summer after Keir Starmer resigned, as they prepared for what is widely expected to be a Burnham premiership. But some experts warn Reform may have already reached its popularity ceiling after the fast-paced momentum following the 2024 general election and this year’s local elections.
Chris Bick, a senior research fellow at IPPR, said the scale of Mr Burnham’s victory in Makerfield – where Reform swept up in May’s local elections – is a clear “setback” for Mr Farage. The democracy and politics expert told The Mirror: “However much this is a special case and however much Andy Burnham really is the ‘King of the North’, it's clearly a setback for Reform. I think it's a sign that their momentum is cresting.”
Threat from Restore and loss of voters
Restore, set up by former Reform MP turned enemy Rupert Lowe, has become a new thorn in Mr Farage's side. Reform could lose a quarter (25%) of its voter base – likely its most radical fans – if faced by the Elon Musk-backed party, polling by More in Common (MIC) showed this weekend. The party also risks losing support from more right-wing voters after the decision to swell its ranks with Conservative has-beens like Robert Jenrick and Suella Braverman.
Meanwhile, the Tories, recovering under Kemi Badenoch, could take back traditional Conservative voters alienated by some of Mr Farage’s divisive rhetoric. After the Makerfield by-election, the proportion of Brits who consider Reform the main party on the right dropped seven percentage points, while the Conservatives rose by seven, the MIC survey showed.
Mr Bick said of Reform: “When a party is losing votes in both directions, it becomes very, very difficult to sort of hold together and to maintain support, and so almost that, more than anything else I think, is why Reform finds itself in an existential moment.” He said Mr Farage’s right-wing outfit is now at a “crossroads” in deciding whether to move more towards the Tories or Restore.
£5m gift scandal and trust crisis
Mr Farage – who has stepped back from weekly press conferences with journalists – is also facing trouble over his failure to declare a £5m gift he received from crypto billionaire Christopher Harborne shortly before he announced he'd stand in the general election. Parliament’s sleaze watchdog is looking into whether he broke Commons rules that say new MPs must declare relevant gifts and donations in the previous 12 months.
In a damaging set of interviews last week, the tetchy Reform leader said it's not the public's business how he spends the money, and that he can splash it on Ferraris or betting on horseracing if he wants. “No one cares, apart from the media. No one cares. No one cares at all,” he exasperatingly said. Reform MP and former Tory minister Mr Jenrick later admitted the £5m question was a “legitimate” one for the media to ask.
Mr Bick said Mr Farage could become embroiled in the same “crisis in trust” that voters feel towards the political establishment that Reform rails against. “Discontent with political institutions is a huge part of the reason why Reform has been able to rise so meteorically, but it's also a double-edged sword,” Mr Bick said. “If people all of a sudden feel like it's hard to trust you, there's this real sense of betrayal that kicks in and that can really come back to bite you. And it's really hard to look trustworthy when you have these lingering questions about what is a massive gift in the context of the type of money we talk about in British politics.”
Labour seizes on scandal
The Labour Party – which became well-versed in its attacks on sleaze when Partygate PM Boris Johnson was in power – has seized on the £5m row. “Farage’s scandal has completely derailed Reform’s strategy,” a Labour source told The Mirror. “This scandal isn’t going away – Farage needs to realise he can’t dodge scrutiny if he’s seeking high office. The public can see that it stinks.”
Tim Bale, a politics professor at Queen Mary University of London, said voters’ opinion of Mr Farage influences their opinion of the party as a whole. He told The Mirror: “It is still the case that Reform would be nowhere were Nigel Farage to fall under a bus, so that so much of what people think about Reform in the party revolves around what they think of Nigel Farage and he is an incredibly polarising politician. I mean, to coin a cliché, he's the ultimate Marmite guy, people either love him or they hate him.”
He added that the £5m gift among other negative factors like his closeness to Donald Trump, whose popularity has plummeted further since the Iran war, threaten Mr Farage’s image. Mr Bale said defeats by the Greens at the Gorton and Denton by-election in February and by left-wing Plaid Cymru at October’s Caerphilly contest in Wales also show people are willing to vote tactically to prevent Mr Farage getting into No10.
Burnham threatens Farage's USP
Reform is still ahead in most opinion polls, but studies show Labour would win at a general election if Mr Burnham was leading the party. The ex-Greater Manchester mayor would reduce Reform’s, the Liberal Democrats' and Greens’ vote share by two percentage points each, while Labour would rise six points overall, a More in Common hypothetical voting intention survey showed this week.
Mr Bale said Mr Burnham, who is praised for his political storytelling, presents a unique threat to Mr Farage. He said: “I think obviously Farage’s USP [unique selling point] in some ways, certainly when you compare him to Badenoch or Starmer, is that he speaks human and he's able to connect with ‘ordinary’ people. I think Andy Burnham has probably met his match in that respect. So I think Burnham does present more of a threat to him, certainly in the sort of communications side of politics, and then Burnham, although he's obviously not a digital native, seems to be quite canny when it comes to social media.”
Reform's summer reset
A Reform source suggested a “reset” in strategy was on the way. They said: “There’s going to be a new PM. The whole Cabinet will change. So we’ve got to see where the land lies. We have to recalibrate. Everyone has to reset. The Government has to reset. We’ve just smashed the locals but have a new prime minister now. June is the month to reset, before July and August and into conference season in September.”
On whether the public will see less or more of Mr Farage, the source added: “I think we’ll see him lots. But it can’t just be him. We have to broaden out. Zia [Yusuf] has to do things on his own. Richard [Tice] has to do things on his own. For 18 months, it’s just been Nigel. But you’ll still get lots of Nigel.”
