The headshot that kills Reform?

While Reform is in full denial mode, there is no getting past the fact that their most senior officials and the party leader conspired to subvert the rules on party donations. Prime Ministers have had to resign for less. Jukes and Orr have already resigned, with Farage claiming they were just “contractors”. Farage himself may even be forced to step down as leader.

Either way, it’s a problem for Reform. Farage in the past has proven remarkably resilient to these media witch hunts but this latest episode reveals a culture of sleaze within the party that is a direct consequence of his leadership. Conservative Home says Reform has a “professionalism problem” when in fact it has a Farage problem. He has always been a careless, arrogant, sleazy tyrant, and the culture in the party is a reflection of him and his leadership.

I've always said that the institutional and pathological amateurism of Reform is the culture that Farage brings with him. It taints everything they do. He is the party and the party is him. It will never be resolved as long as he is leader.

But then, if he isn’t leader, Reform is just as cooked. James Orr (ironically a Cambridge professor of ethics) was said to be the big brain who would bring credibility and intellectual heft to party policy, but with him and Farage out of the picture, that leaves Zia Yusuf and Robert Jenrick as the only halfway credible figures. As a Tory defector, Jenrick can’t take the reins lest Reform look like a Tory breakaway faction, leaving Yusuf who is said to be abrasive and generally obnoxious. There is also the small matter that he not yet an MP, and there are no winnable seats up for grabs any time soon.

It’s entirely possible that most Reform voters won’t give a toss about this latest scandal. But prospective normie voters will - and potential donors will give it a hard swerve lest the stench of corruption rub off on them. If it costs them even one percent in the polls and caps further growth, it knocks Reform out of the game so far as forming a government is concerned. There is no spinning this. It’s a disaster for Reform. Regardless of the legalities, these are the worst possible optics.

It perhaps wouldn’t be so bad if this were the first matter of intrigue for Reform, but there’s still the matter of shady crypto donations and a general vibe of sleaze and incompetence around the party. There’s only so much you can casually brush off as establishment media hitjobs. This latest scandal is a goldmine for political satirists and a veritable ammo dump for Reform’s enemies on the left and right. It is also a gift for the Tory party, and one that eliminates any possibility of further defections. There will be some waverer Tory MPs breathing a sigh of relief today that they didn’t jump ship.

Most of all it is a huge let down for Reform voters for whom the Tory party is too tainted by its record of failure. They now have nowhere to go. Some may switch to Restore Britain, but that leaves the right even more hopelessly divided than it was before. This will further boost the anti-Reform tactical vote, probably gifting Labour a second term. It may even bring a general election forward.

We have yet to see the full fallout of this, but this is one that will linger. If the media smells blood in the water the same way they did when Boris Johnson was on the ropes, they will hound Farage until his political life is untenable - and it will likely spur further investigations. Reform people seem to know quite well how to launder foreign money - which suggests they've done it before.

The media was always going to go after Farage on the grounds of financial irregularities, and he was always going to make it easy for them. For my part, I just have to ask why didn't Farage just start up a vape shop like everyone else? Nobody investigates those.