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The hubris of Nigel Farage and senior figures in Reform appears to have finally caught up with them – and this time it could be fatal for their chances of winning an election.
The debacle, which played out on Channel 4, saw Nigel Farage and two of his closest aides caught on video seemingly celebrating a potentially illegal foreign donation after a sting operation exposed the sheer dysfunction within Reform UK.
Putting aside any legal questions, which will now be investigated by the police, the private reaction from one close ally to what had happened was to bemoan the “sheer stupidity and arrogance” of it, as well as a “complete disregard for morality and ethics”.
Reform’s initial response – underlined with a video rant on X by the now former policy director Dr James Orr, who was in the video – was another sign of how detached from reality the party is.
Instead of immediate sackings, the party decided to attack the journalists involved as left-wing climate activists and claim they were the victim of a hoax.
It was a move from the playbook used by Steve Bannon – the alt-right friend of Farage who helped Donald Trump get elected in 2016 – in dealing with this kind of exposé.
It also failed to reflect the gravity of a situation that has seen calls from Labour and the Liberal Democrats for a criminal investigation by police.
By Friday morning, someone had smelt the coffee, and Farage’s long-time chief of staff, Dan Jukes, and Dr Orr had left their posts with immediate effect, pending an investigation.
But the immediate reaction to the Channel 4-Verbatim sting from people close to Farage was to question how this had even been allowed to happen. A number of pointers to the complete chaos behind the scenes have been exposed.
Several wondered why Orr and Jukes had even been involved in fundraising when, typically, in other political parties, that would be handled by a specific fundraiser. In Reform, it was supposed to be the responsibility of businessman Nick Candy.
Then there was the obvious issue that the crucial video was taken in a pub in Clacton during the by-election in July, which Farage himself triggered as a result of mounting questions over an investigation into a £5m (€5.8m) donation he received – and did not declare – from crypto-billionaire Christopher Harborne.
As one ally of Farage said: “Every journalist in the country had been crawling all over Nigel’s finances, the party’s donations, [deputy leader] Richard [Tice]’s finances.
“He had been under a microscope and they fell for a simple sting like this. It could have easily been checked out and avoided.”
The failure to apparently do even cursory checks was an example of the “utter hubris and arrogance” of the people around Farage, another frustrated ally said.
For those wondering why Reform and Farage have allowed themselves to get mired in scandal, this latest exposé showed how much trouble the party is in.
The problem is that the dysfunctionality does not limit itself to potentially criminal activities, but also indicates a failure to properly prepare for government or the fight for the next election.
We saw in the local elections and by-elections how their failures to sort out candidate selection left them with people standing for the party who had links to the far right and spouted racist, misogynist and bigoted views.
Orr had been in charge of policy, but the policy cupboard has largely been threadbare, and unworkable ideas such as cutting £100bn of spending in 100 days are more about quick headlines than actually governing.
The party got caught up in its own publicity and a belief that leading the polls for the past 18 months meant it was going to inevitably form the next government.
Now it is struggling to even hold off the Tories, as Andy Burnham’s Labour takes the lead.
Farage will probably survive this latest scandal, but he cannot survive the dysfunctionality of his own party – and it could cost Reform its hopes of winning an election.
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