Nigel Farage‘s popularity has reached a record low, a new poll has shown, weeks after Reform’s annual party conference was overshadowed by allegations surrounding donations to the party.
A new poll conducted by YouGov shows that almost seven in ten Britons (69 per cent) say they have an unfavourable opinion of the Reform leader.
While this is within the margin of error of last month’s figure (67 per cent), it is the highest figure recorded by YouGov’s tracker for Mr Farage in the ten years it has run.
This includes nearly six in ten Britons (57 per cent) seeing Mr Farage very unfavourably, while just 24 per cent have a favourable opinion of the Reform UK leader.
Mr Farage now has a net favourability rating of -45, identical to Sir Keir Starmer’s score just before his resignation as prime minister. This is down from a rating of -31 this time last year, with Britons now nearly three times as likely to see him negatively than positively.
Although Reform made gains in the devolved and local elections this May, the party has since become bogged down in controversies over donations to Mr Farage, has faced competition on its right from Rupert Lowe’s Restore Britain, and has lost its lead in voting intention polls since Andy Burnham took office.
An unchanged 46 per cent of Britons see Mr Burnham favourably. The proportion viewing him unfavourably has risen six points to 39 per cent in the last month, leaving him with a net favourability rating of +7.
To make matters worse for Mr Farage, a major donations scandal completely overshadowed what he hoped would be a significant comeback speech at Reform’s party conference in Birmingham.
Allegations that the party arranged illegal donations led to the resignation on Friday of Mr Farage’s chief of staff and longtime aide Dan Jukes, as well as policy director James Orr.
With the conference framed around Reform’s plans for its “first 100 days” in government, the discussion was knocked off course as Mr Farage was instead forced to answer questions on whether he could bounce back from another scandal.
Last week, the Metropolitan Police confirmed they have launched a criminal investigation into claims that Reform UK breached party donation rules on illegal foreign funding.
It comes after the force said they were considering complaints from Labour and the Lib Dems over the video footage obtained by Channel 4and investigative group Verbatim as part of a sting operation.
But despite the recent controversy, this weekend it emerged that two crypto-billionaires have donated £36 million each to Reform UK.
The donations from Christopher Harborne and Ben Delo together amount to three quarters of the money spent at the last general election by all parties combined.
Reform has said it will use the money to fund its preparations for office, and that the men want “nothing” in return.
But campaigners have said the £72 million gifts demonstrate the need for a cap on political donations, and Spotlight on Corruption said the situation “creates risks that the game will be rigged in favour of those with the most cash”.
Proposals for a cap are likely to feature heavily in the House of Lords, which will debate the government’s Representation of the People Bill on Monday.
The Bill already contains measures limiting donations from overseas electors to £100,000 a year, but attempts by MPs to impose a general cap failed after the government promised to task officials with investigating how a measure would work.
The YouGov polling spoke to to 2,099 adults in Great Britain between September 9 and September 10.
