What a difference a year makes. Just 12 months ago, Reform was riding high in the polls – hovering at 30%, sometimes above – and pitching itself as a government waiting in the wings as Starmer’s beleaguered premiership faltered further.
After last year’s jaunt (also in Birmingham), Reform basked in a post-conference glow. There was consensus among politicos that an “atmosphere of jubilation” had prevailed. Unions panicked about Labour support leaking to Reform. Big name defections were in the offing. The nation’s bout of Farage-fever appeared to be incurable.
This year, Reform needed a repeat performance. After an injurious summer for Reform in which scandal has proved impossible to shake, Farage’s approval ratings had plummeted. Andy Burnham’s arrival in Downing Street had offered Labour a (modest) bounce and knocked Reform from the polling top spot. Farage’s party felt desperately in need of a reset.
It wasn’t to be. Reform activists and bigwigs instead ventured home from Birmingham yesterday after another damaging few days, with focus firmly on Farage’s “damaged leadership” and a party “in crisis”.
It didn’t start well. On the eve of conference kick-off, footage was released of an undercover sting. Members of Reform’s top team were filmed by reporters appearing to plot ways to avoid strict electoral laws on foreign donations.
Dan Jukes, a senior aide to Farage, and James Orr, Reform’s head of policy, apparently plotted routes to circumvent electoral law to secure foreign party donations worth hundreds of thousands of pounds. Jukes appeared to suggest this could be done by channelling American cash through a British citizen.
The footage also showed polling costing £30,000 was commissioned by Reform and paid for by a reporter posing as a wealthy American. The polling was beneficial to Reform, and widely publicised on newspaper front pages, but the party failed to disclose their role in its production, or the fact it was paid for by a US donor.
“The reality is we could easily get away with it”, Orr told the undercover reporters. Meanwhile, the footage also shows Farage referring to the polling as “bang for your buck,” and thanking the fake donors after they explain their plot to covertly provide funding to the party – which would break the law on party donations.
The story has dominated ever since, despite Reform’s best efforts. The police and Electoral Commission are both investigating.
Vibe in the room
Pippa was at the Reform conference, where she found its supporters to be unfazed and fiercely loyal. “The mood in the conference zone was actually very buoyant,” she tells me. “It’s important that we distinguish between how Reform activists and the party itself feel about allegations of financial wrongdoing, and the wider public.”
Inside the conference hall and at fringe events, Pippa heard similar refrains repeatedly: that Reform is the “victim of a hoax” and “an establishment plot”; and that these stories are “skewed by the left-wing media.” If anything, Pippa found, among Reform’s base these allegations “are making them even more committed to Farage and the Reform cause”, as has been the case with Trump supporters.
The mood is different at the top. A defiant “I have done nothing wrong” tone had certainly been struck by Farage et al in recent months, which was echoed again during his keynote conference speech on Saturday.
But while Farage may have trotted out his beloved blame “the establishment” defence, beneath the rhetoric, Pippa has seen positions start to shift among Reform’s upper echelons. Yesterday, Farage admitted the row “looks bad”.
“It is becoming quite clear to the party leadership that the wider public aren’t happy, and it’s causing Reform problems,” says Pippa.
Who got chop
At 2:30am on Friday morning, both Orr and Jukes were swiftly removed from their positions. These weren’t low-ranking, incidental officials: both had been critical to Farage’s political project.
Jukes’s departure in particular is a massive blow to Farage. The pair are said to have something of a father-son relationship, having worked together since Jukes was a fledgling Ukip press officer. “For maybe 15 years, Jukes has been by Farage’s side as a media spokesperson and his closest aide,” says Pippa. “He has been intricately involved in every step of Reform’s development.”
Orr, meanwhile, is a Cambridge academic close to far-right politicians like Viktor Orbán, and shares many hard-right views, among them being totally opposed to abortion rights. He became Reform’s head of policy in February after much criticism was raised last year at Reform’s lacklustre platform. “Orr provided Reform with a deeply ideological intellectual heft,” says Pippa. When she arrived in Birmingham on Thursday, Reform chiefs were “boasting about how thorough and comprehensive” their policy platform had become during Orr’s tenure.
Pippa spoke to Farage on Thursday and he appeared “characteristically bullish” about the allegations. By the end of the weekend, “it definitely felt like the leadership was shaken.” It’s why Jukes and Orr had to go – losing them both will cause Farage pain, but “Farage was very quickly working to shore up his own position.”
Had no choice
Polling doesn’t show Reform is on the brink of annihilation. Far from it: despite a summer of scandal it remains a serious electoral force, roughly equal to the Tories. Still, it’s a steep decline from where the party sat just months ago often close to 10 points clear of any rival. And while Reform loyalists might show little concern as sleaze oozes from the party, Farage isn’t content with being leader of the third or even second party: he wants a route to power.
Unlike US president, Donald Trump, who won by appealing to his Maga base, to win the keys to 10 Downing Street, Farage will need to secure support from beyond his devotees. “These ‘Reform-curious’ voters saw the party as a potential home while there was widespread dissatisfaction with Labour and the Tories,” says Pippa. Burnham’s arrival, Badenoch 2.0, and a stream of Reform scandals has – temporarily, at least – offered Labour and the Tories some reprieve. “Without these voters, it’s not just that Farage can’t win a majority. It’s a case of Reform not even being the biggest party and therefore able to negotiate a way into government.”
Give away too much ground, however, and Farage risks alienating his most loyal supporters, with Rupert Lowe and Restore circling.
A fine balancing act now faces Farage’s team. “He needs to give a nod to the membership that Reform hasn’t done anything wrong,” says Pippa, “while making sure that they appear to be taking these allegations seriously.”
It’s a difficult bind for Farage, who also has his own alleged indiscretions to grapple with. “As things stand it’s not looking great for Farage,” says Pippa. “There is speculation as to whether he’ll even stick it out. He says he will, but we know his family are reluctant, and we know he’s under intense pressure.” It’s far from guaranteed, she says, that he’ll be at Reform’s helm come the next election.
That’s not to say he should be counted out yet. Farage is a political cockroach, or as Pippa puts it slightly more flatteringly, “he has spent a career defying political gravity.”
Dan Jukes and Nigel Farage filmed as part of Channel 4 and Verbatim’s undercover investigation into Reform finances. Photograph: Verbatim/Channel 4 News
