It seems like in the space of just a month or so, Reform have had a few reality checks.
From the highs of the local elections at the start of May, things aren’t going so smoothly anymore for Nigel Farage‘s clan.
After losing their first two council seat defences, the party has started to flatline in the polls – prompting suggestions their popularity has “topped out” – and it looks like they’re losing members as well.
A few months ago, Reform figures couldn’t stop banging on about how many members were joining the party, prompting them to start a live ticker of membership numbers.
They seemingly had lofty ambitions of overtaking Labour’s membership numbers as well, with a line above the ticker reading: “AT 309,000 WE WILL OVERTAKE LABOUR’S MEMBERSHIP AND BECOME THE LARGEST POLITICAL PARTY IN THE UK.”
But the problem with having a live tracker of your membership numbers is that everyone can see when things aren’t going so well.
And in the last month or so it seems that the ticker has started going in the other direction – significantly.
At the start of June, Reform appeared to have around 237,000 members. Now, their membership ticker is roughly 10,000 down on this, at 227,592 at the time of writing.
It’s safe to say, the membership trend hasn’t gone unnoticed on social media over the last couple of weeks.
Just this week, Robert Hayward, a Conservative peer and election expert, told The Independent that the party appears to have “topped out” in support.
This came after Reform suffered two council by-election losses where they were defending seats — a first for the party.
Both seats had previously been won by Reform in recent local elections. But the councillors stood down shortly after being elected, triggering the by-elections.
Hayward said the results, alongside a slight dip in Reform’s polling numbers, could point to trouble ahead for Nigel Farage.
You can read more on that story here.