Nigel Farage’s insurgent Reform UK has now been dominating the British opinion polls since June 2025. Quite an achievement for a party led by one of the political world’s classic outsiders—or losers, according to his critics—Nigel Farage. He has tested a number of political vehicles to destruction in the past, including the UK Independence Party, the Brexit Party and, much earlier, the UK Conservative Party. Carpetbaggers rarely travel farther faster.
The paradox of Reform’s recent rise is that, while large numbers of voters agree with its policies, especially on immigration, many do not rate its leader. Nigel Farage is almost as unpopular as Keir Starmer. According to the polling organization, YouGov, more than 64 percent of voters think unfavorably about Farage, against 69 percent who view Starmer negatively. That is a pretty worrying metric for a party leader who confidently expects to be Britain’s next prime minister.
Moreover, everyone testifies to Farage’s skills as a populist politician—a great communicator, as he is described even by commentators on the left. It is inconceivable that Reform could have become the leading party in UK opinion polls without him. So how does Reform deal with the Farage Paradox?
Last week Reform presumptuously announced its “shadow cabinet” with the former Tory ministers, Robert Jenrick and Suella Braverman, occupying the Treasury and equalities briefs respectively, while the Asian businessman, Zia Yusuf, covers home affairs and immigration. Farage joked that Britons would be seeing “less of me in future”.
There was much ribald commentary about this being a cabinet of Tory Party rejects and anti-immigration fruitcakes. But it is undoubtedly the right thing for Reform to do, if only to stop it being regarded as Nigel Farage’s personal property, which it literally was until a year ago. Reform UK was founded by him as a private limited company in 2018 and is still a non-profit company operating as Reform UK Ltd.
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