Danny Kruger admits Reform UK is losing support to Labour after 'very difficult year'

Reform UK has been losing support to Labour after what Danny Kruger described as "a very difficult year", the senior figure in Nigel Farage's party admitted on Sunday, little more than 12 months after his own defection from the Conservatives.

Kruger, the MP tasked with preparing Reform for government, told Sky News he did not regret jumping ship, even as recent polls point to a Tory revival under Kemi Badenoch. He did, however, concede that his party had also been squeezed by the arrival of a "more plausible" Labour leader in Andy Burnham.

"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," Kruger said. "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."

The admission comes as Reform braces 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 British general election.

Reform has also been hit by a number of undercover media investigations that 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, with the party continuing to face turmoil over questions about vetting failures and professionalisation.

The polling picture has sharpened the sense of pressure. A More in Common survey earlier this month put the Conservatives on 25%, the first time in 18 months they had exceeded their vote share at the time of their record election defeat. Another poll, by the former Conservative deputy chair Lord Ashcroft, put Labour on 31%, the Conservatives on 26% and Reform UK on 18%.

Signs that the Tories are overtaking Reform have led Burnham to instruct the Labour party to "rearm" to fight the Conservatives at the next election, amid concern inside government that the prospect of a Badenoch-led recovery must be taken seriously.

Kruger nonetheless insisted Reform remained "on a trajectory towards victory", arguing that Tory votes were "piled up in their heartlands" and that Reform was the only party of the right capable of competing with Labour across the UK, including Wales, Scotland and northern England. He described Reform as "a tiny party" that was getting on with "modernising behind the scenes", adding that media attention had focused on a "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 also defected to Reform, said he no longer believed Farage's party could emerge as the largest party at 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 criticising 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."