The donations row that engulfed Reform UK last week “reflects a real problem” with the party, the majority of voters believe.
Nearly two-thirds of people believe the allegations surrounding top Reform figures show there is a problem with the way the party is run and deals with its finances, City AM/Freshwater Strategy polling has revealed. This compared with 26 per cent who said the row was “exaggerated” and instead said little about how the party was run.
Polling was conducted on the first weekend of September, just days after Channel 4 News published an investigation showing Nigel Farage’s chief of staff Dan Jukes and policy chief Dr James Orr planning to accept a donation from a foreign benefactor via a middle man.
Reform UK, which dropped behind Labour for the first time in a year and a half in the latest set of survey results, suspended the influential party officials pending an investigation after the undercover sting operation was broadcast.
Farage was also filmed in the investigation celebrating the success of funding for an advantageous poll for Reform UK conducted by JL Partners.
He said he “wasn’t even listening” to undercover journalists posing as donors but there was “human error” in how his allies spoke to donors. He said the party had not taken any illegal cash before.
Fresh polling showed that, out of previous Reform UK voters, around 21 per cent said allegations against party officials showed there was a real problem while 69 per cent said accusations are exaggerated.
Reform UK not much worse than Labour and Tories?
Voters were more split on how Reform UK differed from other major parties on their handling of money.
Some 49 per cent of respondents to the survey of over 1,250 people said Farage’s party had “more of a problem with standards” than other parties, while 41 per cent said Reform UK was no worse than the likes of Labour, the Tories and Greens.
Voters’ dwindling trust in Reform has put the party under pressure to boost the professionalism of its operations. City AM reported that the party had cut back freebies for crypto investors at its conference in Birmingham last week amid scrutiny over links to the Thai-based billionaire Christopher Harborne, the US-pardoned entrepreneur Ben Delo and the convicted fraudster George Cottrell.
The Metropolitan Police said it was aware of the report after being urged to investigate the claims while the Electoral Commission said it was “considering all relevant information” around donations.
However, figures in City AM/Freshwater Strategy results showed that the debacle surrounding Reform UK made “no difference” to their voting intentions. About 41 per cent said it would make them less likely to back Reform.
Method note: Freshwater Strategy interviewed n=1,249 eligible voters in the UK, aged 18+ online, between 4 – 6 September 2026. Margin of Error +/- 2.8%. Data are weighted to be representative of UK voters. Freshwater Strategy are members of the British Polling Council and abide by their rules.