Reform’s falling polls, election failures and internal warfare are becoming impossible to ignore - Reform Watch
Category: Analysis
By Jack Dart
Farage has spent months trying to make Reform look like a government-in-waiting, even creating a self-styled “shadow cabinet” to give the party an air of authority it simply does not have. Behind that presentation, support has fallen sharply from its peak, election results have disappointed, and increasingly bitter rows are breaking out inside the party.
In February, Nigel Farage unveiled what Reform calls its “shadow cabinet”, handing out titles including “Shadow Chancellor” to Robert Jenrick and “Shadow Home Secretary” to Zia Yusuf. The terminology is doing a lot of work. Parliament defines the Shadow Cabinet as the senior team appointed by the Leader of the Official Opposition, currently the Conservatives. Reform has simply adopted the language for its own frontbench. Yusuf is not even an MP or peer, so his “Shadow Home Secretary” title carries no parliamentary status. It is a branding device, intended to make a party with eight MPs look more like an alternative government than it actually is. That cultivated image of seriousness is becoming harder to sustain. Reform's monthly polling average peaked at 31.8% in September 2025. By July it had fallen to 24.3%, its lowest monthly average since March 2025. YouGov subsequently recorded Reform on 22% on 10 August, with Labour ahead on 24%. The results at the ballot box have been just as uncomfortable for Farage. Reform talked up its prospects in Makerfield, only for Andy Burnham to beat it by 9,231 votes, taking 54.8% against Reform's 34.5%. Then came Greater Manchester. Reform urged activists to travel around 250 miles to Clacton to help Farage, effectively downgrading its own mayoral campaign. Bev Craig subsequently won the mayoralty with 47% of first preferences, while Reform managed 21%. And after all that effort in Clacton, Farage won exactly the contest everyone expected him to win. Labour, the Conservatives, Liberal Democrats and Greens had all declined to stand. Even so, 9,455 people, almost 27% of those voting, chose a man wearing a bin on his head. The problems continue further down the party. Kirklees councillor David Rowan has been suspended following the emergence of historic social media posts. Sajjad Raja was investigated while standing for Reform in Leeds after footage emerged of him chanting “from the river to the sea”. George Finch has faced repeated controversy over his leadership in Warwickshire. Joe Standen has stepped down as Reform's group leader in Portsmouth, while former parliamentary candidate Bob Lomas remains another example of the party's persistent problems with candidate vetting. Now the rows are reaching the top. Tim Montgomerie, one of Reform's most prominent Conservative defectors, was suspended after publicly criticising Farage and Yusuf. He had challenged Farage's handling of the Clacton count and the £5 million gift now back under parliamentary investigation, while also accusing Yusuf of damaging the party. Yusuf himself recently called former defence secretary Ben Wallace a “traitor”, forcing Farage to publicly rebuke the man he presents as his Shadow Home Secretary. That is the contradiction Reform now has to explain. It created grandiose shadow ministerial titles to convince voters that it had developed the personnel and discipline required to run the country. Six months later, its polling lead has largely disappeared, its electoral record is deteriorating, and members of that supposedly government-ready operation are increasingly fighting one another in public. The performance of seriousness is getting much harder to maintain.