Reform UK has been losing support to Labour after “a very difficult year”, Danny Kruger has said, just over 12 months after his defection to Nigel Farage’s party.
The MP, who has been tasked with preparing Reform for government, denied he regretted jumping from the Conservatives as recent polls indicated a Tory revival under Kemi Badenoch.
However, Kruger made a concession that Reform had also been squeezed by the arrival of a “more plausible” Labour leader in Andy Burnham.
Reform is bracing for a report from the standards commissioner over Farage’s failure to declare a £5m gift from the crypto billionaire Christopher Harborne.
The gift has cast a shadow over the party since the Guardian revealed in May that Farage had taken it shortly before announcing he would stand in the 2024 general election.
Reform has also been hit by a number of undercover media investigations, which have led to the departure of two key advisers to Farage, as well as the departure of councillors. The party’s general secretary left the role last week, as Reform continued to face turmoil over questions about vetting failures and professionalisation.
Kruger told Sky News on Sunday morning: “What’s happened is that the Labour party has replaced a deeply unpopular leader with a new leader who looks more plausible. So the left is more united and so Labour’s vote has gone up.
“Labour have also taken a few points back in the polls from us, as it were, so we have come down a bit. We have also had a very difficult year.”
Signs that the Tories were overtaking Reform in the polls have led Burnham to instruct Labour to “rearm” to fight the Conservatives at the next election, amid concern inside government that it must take the prospect of a Badenoch-led recovery seriously.
The Tories had risen to 25%, according to polling earlier this month from More in Common, the first time in 18 months the party had exceeded its vote share at the time of its record election defeat. Another poll, by the former Conservative deputy chair Lord Ashcroft, put Labour on 31%, the Tories on 26% and Reform UK on 18%.
Kruger insisted Reform was still “on a trajectory towards victory”, saying Tory votes were “piled up in their heartlands”, leaving Reform as the only party of the right capable of competing with Labour across the UK, including Wales, Scotland and northern England.
He added that Reform – “a tiny party” – was getting on with “modernising behind the scenes”, adding: “The focus of the media has been on very second-order issue about local candidates who said very stupid things and need to go,.”
Speaking later on the same Sky News programme, Tim Montgomerie, a veteran Tory activist and former government adviser who defected to Reform, said he no longer believed that Farage’s party could emerge as the largest in the next general election.
“I think it’s unlikely that they could win the next general election any more,” said Montgomerie, who was suspended by Reform this year after he criticised Farage’s decision not to attend the count when he won the Clacton byelection.
“That’s one of the lessons of the last nine months. But can they be the main centre right party in Britain? I think that’s still to play for because Danny is right.”
