Farage is now as unpopular as Starmer was before he resigned, and Reform has a £72m problem

Nigel Farage’s carefully cultivated image as Britain’s great political disruptor is looking increasingly less convincing.

The Reform UK leader’s personal popularity has slumped to its lowest point in a decade, with a new YouGov poll showing that almost seven in ten Britons (69 percent) now have an unfavourable opinion of him.

That includes 57 percent who view Farage very unfavourably, while just 24 percent have a favourable opinion of him. His net favourability rating has fallen to -45, exactly the same score recorded by Keir Starmer shortly before he resigned as prime minister.

The September figure is the worst YouGov has recorded for Farage since its tracker began a decade ago. His net favourability was -31 at the same point last year.

The poll comes after a difficult period for Reform, with the party facing sustained scrutiny over its finances. The latest controversy is the extraordinary £72 million donated by cryptocurrency billionaires Ben Delo and Christopher Harborne, who each gave the party £36 million. The donations are the largest ever made to a UK political party.

Reform has welcomed the cash as a means of putting the party on an equal footing with its established rivals. Farage has described himself as “honoured and humbled” by the donations.

But the extraordinary influx of money has also intensified questions about who is funding Reform and what influence extremely wealthy individuals could acquire over British politics. Both donors have spent significant periods living outside the UK, while proposed changes to the law could restrict donations from Britons who have recently returned from living overseas.

The Metropolitan Police has launched a criminal investigation following allegations that senior Reform figures discussed ways of accepting money from a foreign donor and getting around political donation rules. Two senior aides, Dan Jukes and James Orr, subsequently stepped down. Reform denies wrongdoing and says it will cooperate with the investigation.

Indeed, Farage’s -45 rating puts him in uncomfortable company.

Starmer’s rating was also -45 just before his resignation as prime minister. The comparison is not exactly flattering for a politician whose appeal has depended so heavily on attacking the failures and unpopularity of mainstream political leaders.

Meanwhile, Andy Burnham appears to be in a considerably stronger position personally. An unchanged 46 percent of Britons view the Labour leader and prime minister favourably, while 39 percent have an unfavourable opinion, giving him a net favourability rating of +7.

That’s a 52-point gap between Burnham and Farage.

For a politician whose career has been built on insisting that everyone else is out of touch with the public, there is an obvious irony here.

Britain’s most famous populist is becoming increasingly unpopular with the very public he claims to speak for.