Nigel Farage's Popularity Plummets To New Low Amid Row Over His Finances

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Reform leader Nigel Farage is under pressure.https://img.huffingtonpost.com/asset/6a61ef531700009910b3d595.jpeg?ops=scalefit_630_noupscale" />Reform leader Nigel Farage is under pressure.

https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/news/nigel-farage/">Nigel Farage’s popularity has fallen to an all-time low amid the ongoing controversy over his personal finances, new figures have revealed.

Polling by YouGov showed that just 22% of British voters now have a favourable opinion of the https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/news/reform-uk/">Reform UK leader.

That is the lowest figure recorded by the pollsters’ approval rating tracker since 2020.

At the same time, more than two-thirds of the country (68%) now view Farage negatively, including 56% who see him very unfavourably.

His net approval rating of minus 46, which is the joint-lowest ever recorded for him by YouGov is even worse than the minus 41 recorded for https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/news/boris-johnson/">Boris Johnson after partygate and https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/news/keir-starmer/">Keir Starmer’s minus 45 when he resigned as PM.

Farage has been under pressure since The Guardian revealed in April that he did not declare a £5 million gift he received from Thailand-based crypto billionaire Christopher Harborne shortly before he ran to be MP for Clacton.

The Reform leader has insisted he has not broken any rules and is the victim of a “witch-hunt”, but is being investigated by parliament’s standards watchdog.

In a dramatic move earlier this month, he resigned as the MP for Clacton to trigger a “people versus the establishment” by-election, which will be held on August 13.

However, none of the main parties are putting up candidates, meaning his main rival is Count Binface.

Patrick English, YouGov’s head of elections and political and social data, said “Nigel Farage’s net favourability score has been trending gradually downwards since May last year.

“It remains to be seen whether the ongoing Clacton by-election campaign will further impact his popularity, but so far at the very least it does not seem to have interrupted that trend.”

Elsewhere, the YouGov poll also showed that Andy Burnham is the most popular new prime minister since Theresa May in 2016.

That comes after another poll, by More In Common, showed that Burnham’s approval ratings https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/andy-burnham-bounce-polls-labour_uk_6a61b908e4b0c2f78d01db9c">are already higher than Starmer’s ever were.

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