Nigel Farage’s personal approval rating has collapsed to -32 per cent, according to new polling from More in Common – a ten-point drop in a fortnight and the Reform UK leader’s worst showing in at least two years – as new prime minister Andy Burnham’s own ratings soar to +19 per cent.
The findings, echoed by exclusive Ipsos polling for The Independent, come as Mr Farage fights a Clacton by-election of his own making and faces continued questions over undeclared donations and gifts from his adviser George Cottrell.
We asked you whether Reform’s bubble is finally bursting, and the reaction was stark: 69 per cent of you said this is different – it’s terminal – while just 6 per cent think he’ll bounce back as he always has. A further 13 per cent reckon Reform will survive, but only without him at the top, and 12 per cent are still unsure.
That split was reflected in the comments below, where readers wrestled with whether this really is the end of the road for Farage – or whether they’ve heard that before.
Here’s what you had to say:
Although it’s clearly waning, support for parties like Reform and Restore will continue because a percentage of the population are bigots. Racism has never gone away, sadly, and Farage has emboldened these types over the last decade or so after a period in which vocalising discrimination became more taboo. He’s definitely on a downward spiral now and just seems to be making things worse for himself by the day, but some will still want to support a party which allows them to feel that their prejudices are justified.
At least if Farage disappears in shame – which looks increasingly likely – they won’t have a figurehead who’s unfortunately managed to manipulate the media so adeptly.
Reform Ltd was always the creation of Nigel Farage, designed to elevate his profile. He’s essentially a self-promoter.
They’ve had since 2018, when the Brexit Party was formed, to get their policy ducks in a row. The Brexit Party morphed into Reform in 2021 but was essentially the same people. So where are their policies? Shrieking about migrants, waving your arms around maniacally from a boat off the Kent coast, fulminating about DEI hires and fretting about rainbow flags isn’t policy, it’s polemics.
I don’t believe Reform ever had a prayer of acquiring power – the exercise of power requires a degree of hard work which I think is antithetical to Farage’s core personality. He mistakes loquaciousness for eloquence. People are tiring of his bluster. I’m fairly confident that he’s over.
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I read these polls – ‘-32’, ‘dropped 10 points’ – and wondered what it actually means. So I looked it up, and this is the result: despite the sharp decline in his personal approval ratings, around 22 to 26 per cent of British adults still directly support Farage.
It’s still hard to believe that a quarter of the voting population support this, whatever you want to call it.
Nigel Farage has been effective for many years as an outsider on the fringes. He has brought to the mainstream issues that have impacted the main political parties. Reform are a one man band and he has done his bit. Some politicians are more effective on the outside than the inside – Jeremy Corbyn, Tony Benn, etc. – we don’t need Reform or Restore, we don’t need divisive politics.
I admire much of what Farage has achieved and I intend to vote Reform, but he has shown poor judgement of late and made too many unforced errors. He needs to get a grip or step down and allow someone else in Reform to take the reins.
A vastly incomplete history: Nigel Farage was an MEP charged with supporting British fishermen – he turned up to just one of 42 designated meetings on the subject, despite complaining that the EU had gutted British fishing.
His voting record wasn’t much better: an analysis of MEP voting placed him 745th out of 746 MEPs on the register – only one other MEP, who never voted at all, ranked below him. Then there are his expenses: it’s been reported that in 2009 he claimed £2 million, and he’s boasted of claiming £250,000 in a single year – eventually Cameron began garnishing his wages.
There is a lot of complacent media coverage about Farage. I agree that Reform UK are unlikely to win the next election, but that has always been true. It’s also true that Burnham simply cannot deliver – the problems we face are just too difficult. A politician like Farage thrives when everyone criticises him because he can represent himself as the underdog. I don’t think Farage and Reform UK are done yet, not by a long shot.
If Andy Burnham can put British workers first, whatever their ethnicity, provide training opportunities, beef up defence and keep chancers on dinghies out, there will be no vacancy for Nigel Farage – and he can relax with his millions and reflect on all the problems he caused that made more work for everyone else to fix.
It’s an interesting analysis, but I’d suggest Reform voters are more resistant to mainstream narratives than other parties’ – the personal attacks on Farage might even be counterproductive. There will also be more ‘shy’ Reform voters than even the Tories, so how reliable are these opinion polls and vox pops? We’ll see, though – and I enjoyed the reporting from Clacton.
The Ipsos poll this week – admittedly just slightly more flattering to Labour than the YouGov one – is really bad news for Reform. Plug those numbers into Electoral Calculus’s seat prediction tool and, in an election today, Labour would get a comfortable majority, the Tories would still be the official opposition, and Reform would be third with around 100 seats.
I think Farage is finally resigned to the fact that with three-quarters of the country rejecting Reform, it’s simply never going to happen – and that’s why he’s so gloomy and lashing out at everyone these days.
Some of the comments have been edited for this article for brevity and clarity.
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