Majority of voters think Farage was wrong over undeclared gifts

As we’ve extensively reported, Nigel Farage is facing criticism over the various gifts and donations he’s failed to declare. He’s also facing multiple investigations into the same cases.

Unsuprisingly, the public is largely unimpressed with this state of affairs.

Farage spent years complaining the establishment ignored “the will of the people”.

Now 60% of voters – AND half of Reform voters – think he behaved incorrectly over gifts and donations.

Funny how quickly “the people” become “the establishment” when they stop believing Nigel… pic.twitter.com/3AVuhYD0dd

— Liz Webster (@LizWebsterSBF) July 13, 2026

Nigel Farage vs the public

Farage has multiple ongoing scandals right now, including:

• Multiple investigations into a £5m ‘gift’ he received from a crypto billionaire
• Accusations he’s shilling for crypto on behalf of his donors
• Questions over three houses he seemingly failed to declare
• Failure to declare financial support from convicted fraudster Posh George in the runup to the 2024 election

Now, the Times has commissioned YouGov to poll the public on what they think about the matter. They asked 2,000 people, which is about twice as many as you need for a poll to be considered credible.

The key takeaway is this:

Six in 10 voters believe Nigel Farage has behaved incorrectly over undeclared gifts from wealthy benefactors and only half of Reform UK voters back him

The issue isn’t that voters are simply uniformed because:

Some 22 per cent said they had seen “a lot” about accusations that he did not correctly register donations and another 45 per cent said they had seen “a fair amount”. Only 9 per cent said they had seen “nothing at all”.

Other findings include:

• 40% of voters “disapprove of Farage’s decision to call a by-election” (22% approve)
• 35% “think Farage is treated in the same way as politicians from other parties” (24% think the press is more hostile towards him)
• 26% actually think the press is “unduly lenient” towards Farage

Farage ‘very sleazy’

The above isn’t the only polling YouGov has done on Farage recently. Data released on 10 July found:

Most Britons say Nigel Farage is ‘very sleazy’

Results included:

• 73% of Britons describe Nigel Farage as sleazy, including 56% thinking he is *very* sleazy
• This includes 40% of Reform UK voters seeing Farage as sleazy
• Belief Reform UK as a party is sleazy has increased by 18 points over the last two years, with the public now more likely to consider them to be dodgy than Labour
• 77% of the public feel British governments are generally sleazy
• Keir Starmer is seen as sleazy by 51% of Britons, with 42% saying the same of Zack Polanski and 34-36% of Kemi Badenoch or Andy Burnham

That 77% figure is key to understanding why people will support Farage regardless. Once you think all politicians are corrupt, your options are:

• Don’t vote
• Ignore corruption as a factor

Still, Reform and Farage do top the charts when it comes to the perception of sleaziness.

Fading fortunes

It seems that the more the public sees of Farage, the more they dislike him. However, this doesn’t necessarily mean Reform couldn’t win in a general election. What we’ve seen in recent years is that politicians don’t need to enjoy broad support from the public; they just need to be less hated than the alternative.

Still, Farage’s various financial scandals could sink his career regardless of what’s happening with his popularity. We’re sure that Farage won’t be happy about that. We’re equally sure the public will broadly think he had it coming.

Featured image via the Canary

By Willem Moore