For many years it’s been something of a shibboleth in the political classes that Nigel Farage isn’t like other politicians and his political projects – UKIP, the Brexit Party, and now Reform UK – are held to different standards than the ‘mainstream’ parties. Negative stories just don’t seem to stick to them in the same way, their opponents grumble.
This different kind of scrutiny is in part to do with the kind of parties Farage has previously led, which have sought to make the political weather rather than take power, critique policy rather than produce it. This approach has been successful, with the slow burn of pressure applied by UKIP a key factor behind Brexit. But now Reform wants to play a different game: explicitly seeking to become a party of government – a government with Farage at its head.
Despite these aspirations, Reform has until recently maintained its ability to brush off negative stories. Having performed well at the 2024 general election, the party was able to capitalise on a diminished Tory party and a Labour Party at war with its leader to great success at the local votes in 2025 and 2026. Even as its former Welsh leader, Nathan Gill, was sentenced to ten years in prison for accepting bribes from Russia as a member of the European Parliament in November 2025, Reform’s polling stayed steady. At the start of that month they were at 27%; at the start of December 2025, 26%.
But a look at the polls suggests the party’s shine appears to have begun to dull over the long hot summer. Farage’s unfavourability rating is as high as it has been this parliament and, per YouGov’s tracker, Reform’s rating in the polls has fallen by 5% from a high of 28% in early May.
This slump follows a series of stories in the media about the party’s finances. First was scrutiny over a £5m gift to Farage from crypto billionaire Christopher Harborne, followed by an alleged undeclared donation from convicted fraudster George Cottrell, and reporting on the Montenegrin business interests of Cottrell and other figures linked to the party. Then there was an undercover sting that saw Reform advisers James Orr and Dan Jukes resign amid accusations of soliciting and concealing donations from abroad, and, most recently, two £32m donations promised to the party by Harborne and Ben Delo, another crypto billionaire.
In all instances, Reform, Farage and the individuals involved have denied any wrongdoing. Yet the party’s fall in the polls is clear – and aligns with our own findings on Reform. At Persuasion UK, a research and polling organisation, we aim to understand the public opinion that informs headline polling numbers, including through extensive message-testing to determine what does and doesn’t build support for the UK’s major political parties. Reform’s image among target voters, we have found, is damaged by messages foregrounding any appearance of self-enrichment or financial malfeasance.
Our testing found reports highlighting Farage’s involvement with Bitcoin, his crypto venture with former Conservative chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng, and donations from ultra-wealthy crypto barons – especially where the stories also noted the volatile, get-rich-quick nature of the cryptocurrency industry – sank Reform by three or four points among swing voters, who are essential to win over if you wish to turn from a pressure group into a party of government. The party’s core voter base was largely unaffected.
As we have found in testing on all parties, the most effective messaging is that where the dots are joined up; inert statements about actions are rarely effective, but become more so when properly contextualised. In Reform’s case, this means drawing a direct line between the donations it has received to the party’s policies – such as a pledge to make Britain a crypto-hub. For impact, it’s important to indicate that a message does not just float alongside the party but influences its behaviour and preferences.
While enrichment and crypto are not the only issues that can generate a negative impression of Reform for voters, there is a distinct pattern showing they cause damage. Why? We think this is because they undermine the party’s key claims of being against, not part of, the elite, and doing things differently from other politicians. (On a similar theme, stories about the party’s support for fox hunting are also damaging.)
A helpful comparison comes from Labour’s coalition of voters and potential voters, which are divided on migration. We have found messaging about the government’s ‘successes’ in reducing small boat crossings is not particularly effective in securing votes, as the part of the coalition that is concerned about migration doesn’t trust the party on the issue, and, as you might expect, the part that is not already animated by it, doesn’t become so through this messaging.
On the other hand, Reform’s coalition is broadly united on cultural issues, meaning attack lines that paint the party as too extreme on migration have mixed results; its strong stance on this issue is part of what has appealed to these voters and they are unlikely to be put off by suggestions that it is too draconian. As its target base is more likely to be divided on economic issues, attack lines about support from crypto billionaires are more damaging to the party.
That Reform is weaker when the conflicts are economic – including stories about its own finances – and stronger when they are cultural is apparent in other work we have done on ‘Reform-curious Labour voters’ – that is, those who previously voted for the government but could swing to back Farage’s party. Such voters are a fairly small section of Reform’s coalition, but important to winning the 326 seats necessary to form a majority government at the next election.
These people are significantly to the left of the median Reform voter on issues such as wealth taxes, regulation on employers and landlords, and, crucially for this discussion, whether it is good for Britain to have more millionaires and billionaires. When presented with the statement, “Britain having more millionaires and billionaires would be a bad sign for everyone else – they are probably getting rich at other people’s expense”, 30% of 2024 Reform voters agree, compared to more than 50% of the Reform-curious Labour voters.
We know why this summer’s stories have sunk Reform’s poll ratings, then. Whether continued coverage or new revelations will have an ongoingly deleterious effect, or whether – and where – we hit a point of pricing in, where these stories fail to engage further, remains to be seen.
