Why Things are Getting Even Worse for Reform

2025 was a massive year for Reform UK. In January their polling had risen to the point that they were virtually level with Labour. In April, according to most poll aggregators, Reform overtook Labour for the first time, a real achievement for a third party founded relatively recently. Through the rest of 2025 things looked even better for Reform. They not only maintained their position in the polls, but the gap between them and Labour widened, with them presiding over, at times, a more than 10 point poll lead. However in 2026 things have started to go downhill for Reform. Their polling has slowly been dropping and in the last month they've lost their lead in the polls, largely as a result of a handful of scandals. So in this video we're going to go through these scandals and explain the impact that they're having on the party. Ten years on and it's abundantly clear that Brexit failed to deliver on its promises, causing an economic downturn and distrust in the political class. If that's true though, why is that happening everywhere else? The latest issue of our magazine, Too Long, explains all the other elements in the mix from a decade of change. That's just one of the articles in our longest issue ever. Subscribe to get your copy by clicking the link in the description. While there are a number of scandals surrounding Reform at the moment, the most significant relate to party leader Nigel Farage. As we see it, there were two main financial scandals implicating him. The first of these involve a £5 million payment made from Thai-based investor Christopher Harbourn to Farage in early 2024, before Farage had announced that he'd be returning to British politics. The issue with this payment is that new MPs are required to declare any benefit received in the 12 months before becoming an MP. For his part, Farage had tried to argue that the £5 million payment was made in a personal capacity, and as such it didn't need to be reported. The rules state that purely personal gifts or benefits from family or commercial loans don't have to be registered. Farage has variously claimed that the payment was for his security, was an unconditional gift and a reward for Brexit. However, despite these claims, this didn't clear up the exact nature of what the payment was for, and in early May the Parliamentary Standards Commissioner launched an investigation into the payment. While this investigation is now suspended, it will resume when and if Farage is re-elected as an MP, meaning that this story will likely re-emerge following Farage's victory in the Clacton by-election. The second financial scandal involving Farage is his relationship with George Cottrell. Cottrell has a long history of working with Farage, with him by the reform leader's side throughout some of the biggest moments of his career, including winning the 2016 EU referendum. Cottrell, though, isn't the most squeaky clean character in politics. A month after the referendum, Cottrell was caught agreeing to launder money for undercover agents posing as drug traffickers in the US. He eventually accepted a plea deal and served eight months in prison. Despite this, Farage has maintained a working relationship with him, and the Sunday Times reported that Cottrell supplied security and social media staff to Farage in the year before he became an MP. Farage claimed that Cottrell's support was only provided in a personal capacity, and that therefore it didn't need to be declared. On the day that Farage announced that he'd be resigning as an MP, he also revealed that a Second Standards Committee investigation had been opened into him, with him looking into benefits provided to him by George Cottrell. Now, these scandals are already having a significant impact on the public's image of Farage. A YouGov survey from early July, with fieldwork conducted between the 7th and 8th of July, i.e. after these financial scandals were made public, showed that 73% of people think of Nigel Farage as sleazy, including 56% who think he's very sleazy. Worryingly enough for Farage, even among those who have said they voted reform in 2024, 40% have said that they think Farage is sleazy. This is significantly more than the 32% of those that voted Labour, saying that Starmer's sleazy, the 19% of Green voters saying that Polanski is sleazy, and 15% of Conservative voters saying that Baedenoch's sleazy. However, making matters even worse are the scandals involving other senior reform figures. Richard Tice, Reform's Chairman, has been caught up in two of his own finance-related scandals. The first relates to the Standards Committee opening an investigation into Tice over his failure to make a declaration of interest. The investigation was opened on the 28th of July and relates to a speech made by Tice on the 22nd of June in a debate about UK democracy and Israeli influence. Paragraph 6 of the MP's Code of Conduct states that members must always be open and frank in declaring any relevant interest in any proceeding of the House or its committees, and in any communications with ministers, members, public officials or public office holders. It's alleged that, as Tice had been on a trip to Israel last year, funded by a pro-Israel lobbying group, this should have been declared at the start of his speech. Technically, Tice declared the trip when it happened, but the rules state that he was required to make an oral declaration prior to his statement in this debate, which he failed to do. In addition to this, Tice is also at the centre of a police investigation into a payment made to Reform UK. It's alleged that on the 10th of June 2024, Fiona Cottrell, George Cottrell's mum, donated £1 million to the think tank Britain Means Business, which was controlled by Richard Tice. On the very same day, Tice is said to have donated half a million pounds from the think tank to Reform UK. This payment is now being investigated by the National Crime Agency as part of its Suspicious Activity Reports programme, and also by the Met Police. It's alleged that the Met are specifically investigating alleged offences under section 61 of the Political Party's Elections and Referendums Act of 2000. Already two people have been interviewed under caution, although as yet no arrests have been made. These scandals add to the ongoing problems faced by Reform. The fact that these stories were broken sequentially has maintained the growing sense of scandal associated with the party. Additionally, the fact that very little else has happened for Reform in the last few months, no by-election victories, not a great showing at the Manchester mayoral by-election, no big-figure defections etc, has made it particularly difficult for them to regain momentum. In fact, making things even harder for the party is Farage's decision to call the Clacton by-election. Despite Farage likely hoping that this might bring attention back to Reform, the decision by the main parties to boycott it has turned it into a farce, and has likely hurt Reform even more. 43% of people polled by YouGov said that they thought Farage was wrong to trigger the by-election, compared to only 24% who thought he was right to do so. All of this, then, has contributed to a steep decline in Reform's net favourability. They're now the most deeply unpopular party of all five major parties in the UK, declining 13 points in the last 12 months. So, unless Reform can conjure up some more positive news stories and rebuild some momentum, things aren't looking good for their plans to usurp the two main parties. Now, this story about the Standards Watchdog investigation into TICE is constantly updating as more and more outlets are reporting on it, so it might feel like it's hard to keep up with the ever-changing media landscape. Right now, there are 33 sources currently reporting on it, with most of the coverage coming from the left. This type of analysis is why Ground News has been our favourite way to It's no secret by this point just how much we're fans of Ground News. They've been long-time supporters of this channel and independent news media at large, and truly help us understand the political climate better. For example, without Ground News, we wouldn't be able to easily compare the headlines for this story on Richard Tice, and see that the left is framing it as an investigation into an undeclared Israel link, and the right is highlighting Tice's claim that he's being investigated as a result of failing to declare an interest while fighting antisemitism. Ground News not only gives you an easy way to digest the news, but it also offers a comprehensive breakdown into the ownership, bias distribution and factuality of each article, allowing you to dive even deeper. If you're worried about how much you can trust what's being said about a specific story, with a click of a button you can filter and sort every story by their factuality level, helping you to easily grasp the reliability of each outlet. And with their blind spot feed, you're able to see everything you might not normally stumble across, both local and international, keeping you fully informed even outside of your media bubble. 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