It’s fair to say 2026 has not been a good year for Nigel Farage. His Reform party went from riding high in the polls, to falling into third place behind both Labour and the Conservatives. But it seems the latest figures released by Lord Ashcroft on Sunday have sent him over the edge.
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New poll puts Reform below the 20% mark
According to the numbers, Labour lead on 31% – which is highly consistent with the data recently published by the likes of YouGov, Opinium, and Ipsos. Then, following a summer bounce for Kemi Badenoch, the Tories are now up to 26% – easily marking their highest total this calendar year.
Then, some way down in third, there’s Reform. Lord Ashcroft has got the party on a lowly 18% – representing one of their smallest vote shares in an opinion poll since 2024. It shows an astonishing decline in the party’s popularity – but of course, the top brass aren’t taking this one on the chin.
Senior figures within Reform have lashed out at the pollster, branding Lord Ashcroft as an ‘unreliable’ source. He uses a different methodology to others, asking participants who they would vote for ‘at the next election’, rather than ‘if there was an election tomorrow’.
He’s not having it! Nigel Farage fumes at Lord Ashcroft poll
Despite this discrepancy, many people have been keen to point out that Lord Ashcroft was actually one of the first pollsters to predict a Reform slump, forecasting them as the third-place party months before anyone else did. Alas, Nigel Farage has unleashed his fury, calling the data ‘dishonest and bogus’:
“This is totally dishonest polling by a Conservative Party donor, who isn’t even a member of the British Polling Council. He had us sitting at 21% in May, and Reform achieved 28% for the Local Elections – and his polling has been proven as bogus time and time again.” | Nigel Farage
Nadhim Zahawi also chimed in on Sunday, identifying this as a ‘rogue poll’. However, Lord Ashcroft himself has responded to the furore, reminding Nigel Farage and his colleagues that he didn’t hear any similar gripes when one of his surveys gave Reform a nine-point lead. Funny, that…