Scrutiny over its leader's finances, rumours of insider discord, and sliding polling numbers have cast a cloud over the anti-migrant party's annual conference
If a week is a long time in politics, then a year is a very long time indeed.
Reform UK heads into its 2026 conference facing a very different set of circumstances than it did a year ago.
Twelve months earlier, the right-wing, anti-migrant insurgents were riding high in the polls, bolstered by the polycrisis in Keir Starmer's Labour government and a stagnating Tory party.
Reform leaders were eagerly presenting Nigel Farage as the country's prime minister-in-waiting and the party as having broken the Labour-Conservative duopoly's stranglehold on British politics.
May's local elections appeared to provide evidence of the party's thesis. The vote saw them pick up almost 1,500 council seats and take control of 14 local authorities, making the party bigger than ever.
It may also prove to be the high watermark of the party's popularity.
The Reform Spring has since given way to a summer of disquiet, if not outright discontent, amid scrutiny over Farage's finances, rumours of insider discord, and a reinvigorated Labour Party.
Questions over Farage's financial arrangements began gaining traction in the media in May after details emerged over an undeclared £5 million gift from billionaire investor Christopher Harborne. Several weeks later came an investigation by The Times that revealed his ties to convicted fraudster and cryptocurrency gambler George Cottrell. Farage says he didn’t break any rules but has been placed under investigation by the parliamentary standards commissioner.
His response to the allegations was to dramatically hand in his notice from parliament and trigger a by-election, before lying low from the media spotlight. This proved to be a major own goal. Other parties' refusal to participate in the race denied him his showdown against "The Establishment", leaving him instead to fight an absurd head-to-head against Count Binface. Though he easily retained his Clacton seat, the race has not made the questions go away and he remains under investigation by parliament.
Meanwhile, Labour's defenestration of the historically unpopular Keir Starmer in favour of the TikTok-savvy everyman Andy Burnham has led to a rapid reversal of the party's fortunes, displacing Reform at the top of the opinion polls. Farage, who built his public image as a relatable "man of the people", now has a charismatic competitor speaking to the concerns of his party's core supporters in deindustrialised, left-behind Britain.
Even before Labour anointed the 'King of the North' as the country's new prime minister, Starmer's bid to out-Reform Reform had begun to dilute the Farage's signature pledge to radically curb migration. Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood's crackdown on asylum seekers has seen applications fall by a fifth over the past year, while the number of boats crossing from France has fallen to six-year lows, recent data has shown.
The party also faces a challenge to its right in the form of Rupert Lowe's Restore Britain, an ethnonationalist offshoot for whom Reform is too moderate on migration. Lowe's demands for the mass deportation of millions of migrants not only threatens to eat into the party's voter base but has triggered the defection of one of its most powerful international supporters, far-right tech agitator Elon Musk.
There have also been whispers of behind-the-scenes strife, chiefly involving the party's home affairs spokesperson Zia Yusuf, who was rebuked by Farage earlier this month after calling former Tory defence secretary Ben Wallace a "traitor".
That the party's momentum has stalled is evident in recent opinion polls, which have put Reform in second place behind Labour. More in Common's latest survey this week delivered the party's worst result in 18 months, putting it in third place: four points behind Labour and one behind the Conservatives.
A recent YouGov survey found that 71% of the public would use at least one negative term to describe Farage, with "racist" and "liar" being the most popular. Meanwhile, two-thirds of Britons do not see Farage as prime ministerial - including more than a quarter of Reform voters. For a party so built around the personality of one man, the figure does not make for pretty reading.
As delegates gather in Birmingham, party officials will be keen to portray this as a temporary hiccough, a bump in the road to victory at the next election. Farage will hope to rekindle the rockstar entrance of a year ago and put the turbulent summer behind him by cultivating a Reform versus The Establishment siege mentality.
His lieutenants have announced new policies as he continued to lie low ahead of the event. Deputy leader Richard Tice vowed to restrict migrants' access to social housing. Robert Jenrick declared plans to slash the welfare state. Foreign nationals would be banned from accessing almost all benefits. Will this be enough to quieten the murmurs of dissent?
