LATIKA M BOURKE: Nigel Farage has peaked, political analyst says as explosive footage damages Reform’s hopes

Nigel Farage’s popularity has peaked but could still become Prime Minister under the UK’s current first-past-the-post voting system, Britain’s top political analyst has declared.

Mr Farage, an ally of Australia’s One Nation leader Pauline Hanson and US President Donald Trump, experienced his worst week as Reform Leader yet after Channel 4 and Verbatim Media released a months-long undercover investigation that exposed Reform operatives plotting ways to circumvent UK electoral laws.

The explosive report was broadcast on the eve of Reform’s annual conference held on the weekend and derailed the event.

It contained footage of Mr Farage and his top aide Dan Jukes and Reform operative James Orr, suggesting ways, including by secretly commissioning undeclared polling against polling rules, to get around strict donation laws prohibiting overseas money from funding British politics

Mr Jukes and Mr Orr have both been stood down from their party positions, and Mr Farage has attempted to diminish their roles as “contractors”.

Mr Jukes has been Mr Farage’s right-hand man for decades, and they are so close that their relationship is often compared to that of a father and son.

In one memorable scene from Verbatim Media and Channel’s Four’s secretly-filmed footage, Mr Farage and Mr Jukes are seen feasting on oysters and champagne at an outdoor lunch in Clacton while they discuss trying to send £500,000 ($940,000) from an American businessman into Reform’s funds.

Mr Farage claimed he wasn’t really listening and was relying on his staff’s pre-checks.

“I was told before the meeting that it was a global business, but there was the family office, was based in London,” he told the BBC.

“A global family business. Look, my job wasn’t to do compliance. My job wasn’t to do a background check. My job was to turn up at a lunch, have a glass of wine and shake somebody’s hand.”

Scandal has followed the populist movement which has threatened to overturn British politics. Mr Farage is already being investigated for a £5 million ($A9.4 million) donation from an offshore crypto billionaire that he did not declare.

He called a by-election in his seaside seat of Clacton to try and pre-empt a Parliamentary standards inquiry and a possible suspension from Parliament. He increased his vote share with a strong turnout, showing resilience amongst his heartland voters.

Speaking exclusively to the Latika Takes podcast, Professor John Curtice, who is widely regarded as Britain’s pre-eminent political commentator, said Mr Farage’s ratings had been on the slide since before multiple scandals began to hit Reform.

“They peaked a long time ago,” Professor Curtice said.

“The only chance of Nigel Farage becoming Prime Minister with an overall majority is if we keep the current electoral system; then he has the opportunity,” he said.

“He’s got a chance, sure, given where he’s been in the opinion polls and the not-so-recent past. Yes, they’re down at the moment, but if they go back up again to 27, 28, 29 per cent and they lead 5, 6, 7 points geographically.

Reform has been dominant in the opinion polls since last April and hit its highest ever recorded level of support last September of 32 per cent.

But the party has since slipped to third place. More in Common has Reform at 22 per cent behind the Conservatives at 23 per cent and Labour, under new leader Andy Burnham, dominating at 26 per cent.

“Reform’s support came essentially from the Conservatives; as of the autumn last year, one in three of 2024 Conservative voters had switched to Reform. The Conservative Party has been able to claw some of that back,” Professor Curtice said.

But he said it was also because Reform’s socially conservative, pro-Brexit brand of right-wing politics was ultimately catering to a “niche market”.

“It’s not a majority of Britain. Part of what Reform is about is that it’s people who are unhappy about the way Britain’s become much more of a socially liberal society — this is a minority group.”

But he said that Britain’s voting system, combined with the increased fragmentation of the vote between Labour, the Tories, Reform, the Liberal Democrats and the Greens, meant that Mr Farage’s only shot at leading the country would be under the current voting system, which the new Prime Minister, and many Labour backbenchers want changed.

“Now, if your politics are fragmented, having about 30 per cent was enough to put them about 10 points in the lead,” Professor Curtice said.

“And then, given we have a first-past-the-post electoral system, that could be enough to get you a majority in the House of Commons.”

He said if the Labour government switched to proportional representation (PR) voting, which awards seats according to the total vote share, it would damage Reform’s hopes.

“Because if you take the view as I do, that 30 per cent is about the peak (of Reform) under any conceivable PR system, 30 per cent is not going to be enough,” he said.

“So if you want to stop Farage, and if you don’t think you’re gonna win the election, it would make sense to change.

“But of course this does mean that the turkeys would have to accept that Christmas is going to come anyway and that therefore Labour MPs, some of whom, in voting for PR, would end up ensuring their parliamentary careers certainly don’t continue.

“And you know what parties tend to be deeply reluctant to admit defeat.”

In 2011, the British public rejected a referendum to change the voting system to Australia’s preferential voting system.

But Professor Curtice believed if the vote were held today, a different result might be possible, and said: “The electorate’s shifted substantially so I think there’s much better chance of a referendum being won than was 15 years ago.”