Reform UK has suffered a significant dent to its polling over the past 12 months. Emerging polls suggest this problem could be getting worse too, especially the polls relating to Nigel Farage’s personal approval. This has got the party bigwigs in a panic, apparently.
HODGES: Reform chiefs are thinking the unthinkable over Farage polls https://t.co/iqxu7fu5Cz
— Reform UK Exposed
(@reformexposed) August 2, 2026
Reform UK crashes back down to Earth
As demonstrated by Politico’s Poll of Polls, which “aggregates data from multiple sources to give a more accurate picture”, Reform held 30% of the vote share a year ago but just 24% today.
Reform has somewhat levelled off, but the latest polls suggest the party’s biggest issue right now is Labour’s growing support.
BREAKING | Labour surge to 4pt lead
Lab: 27% ( +5 )
Ref: 23% ( – )
Con: 17% ( -3 )
Lib: 12% ( +1 )
Grn: 12% ( -2 )
— Seats —
SNP: 48
Plaid: 11
Poll: Opinium, 29 July (+/- vs 17 July) pic.twitter.com/XCDwCUoHTy
— Stats for Lefties
(@LeftieStats) August 1, 2026
As we’ve said elsewhere, we’re not confident Burnham can maintain this momentum in the long run. If he can keep this up for a few months, though, he could establish a significant lead over Reform. Given Farage’s many ongoing scandals, there’s no reason to think his party’s own polling won’t dip further too.
Speaking of Farage, look at what’s happening to his personal approval:
Approval Ratings (NET)
Andy Burnham: 16%
Kemi Badenoch: 1% (-2)
Ed Davey: 1% (+3)
Zack Polanski: -20% (-5)
Nigel Farage: -24% (+2)Via: Opinium
Field Work: 29 – 31 July changes w/ 15 – 17 July pic.twitter.com/hJtsR5kOKx— PollCheck (@poll_checker) August 1, 2026
Dissent from within the party
Given the obvious decline, it’s no surprise that senior Reform members are apparently not happy. As one told the Mail’s Dan Hodges:
There’s no way Nigel puts this behind him now. The five million quid isn’t going to go away. George Cottrell isn’t going away. I don’t understand what he was thinking. But it doesn’t matter. I don’t see how we move on from it.
If you’ve not been living under a rock, you’ll know the Canaryreported the following on the topic:
Farage accepted the £5m gift from Harborne – a crypto billionaire – in 2024. At the time, he’d said he wouldn’t run in the general election, but this changed after he received the £5m. The problem is that after he became an MP, he was supposed to declare any ‘registrable benefits’ from the previous 12 months. Farage did not declare the £5m, and now it looks like he was purposefully trying to hide it.
George Cottrell, meanwhile, is a different crypto pusher, and one who’s made numerous dubious donations to Reform UK and Farage. He’s also an aristocrat known for calling Farage “Daddy” — make of that what you will!
Fraudster sent mum £2m before she made suspect Reform donation
Another Reformer told Hodges:
The Clacton stunt was madness. He’s totally marginalised himself and the party. Recess is the moment we traditionally capitalise. But we’re nowhere. We’re just talking to ourselves.
The Clacton by-election is actually being praised by the Tories according to Hodges, as one told him:
Because of the broadcasting rules on by-elections, there are now limits on how much coverage he’s allowed. That’s given us the space to control the agenda. Look at the coverage Chris [Philp, the Tory home affairs spokesman] has been getting on small boats. That’s Farage’s issue. And we’ve been running rings round him.’
It really is depressing that UK ‘politics’ is now just middle-aged men pointing at boats and asking, “Spare a vote, mate?”
None of this is actually going to improve the country, anyway. Sadly, the worse things get, the easier it is to trick people into believing that the poorest among us are the ones stealing all the wealth.
Treachery
In another fun section in Hodge’s piece, the Mail’s man writes:
As for Farage’s inner circle, long-standing suspicion has turned into a concrete belief there is a traitor in their midst. According to one source: ‘Someone is out to get Nigel. The stuff people are getting on the finances is too detailed. We’ve got a rat on the inside.’
The result is the number of people trusted to make decisions has shrunk to a tiny core of acolytes. Which in turn has added to the party’s dysfunctionality.
‘Nigel should be devolving decision-making,’ one former ally told me, ‘but instead everything’s becoming more centralised and secretive. It’s unsustainable.’
Who could have guessed that opening the door to Tory defectors would lead to the sort of in-fighting and dysfunction which plagued the former party of government? We can’t prove that the traitor is Robert Jenrick, but what we’re seeing is functionally identical to the sort of treachery he subjected Kemi Badenoch to.
Perhaps Farage & Co were always smart enough to freeze Jenrick out of the inner core? Regardless, someone is betraying Farage’s trust, and the man has a seemingly endless supply of skeletons in the closet.
It seems like things can certainly get worse for Reform. Given the previous 12 months, it seems like things can only get worse. This is something to hopeful about, even while recognising that Labour is failing to offer the significant change this country needs.
Featured image via Getty Images
By Willem Moore
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