Reform donations row overshadows party's moment to lay out big ideas

Speak to people at the highest levels of Reform UK and they will admit the party has struggled in recent weeks.

Reform's polling numbers have dipped, while Labour's have risen.

One of their aims at this conference was to demonstrate Reform is a serious party of government. After a summer fighting the by-election in Clacton , which the other main parties boycotted, the party wanted to demonstrate they have a plan for government, focusing on immigration and the cost of living.

A press conference alongside Jordan Bardella, President of the National Rally which leads the polls in France, was part of that effort, and the intention was to project serious international co-operation with another insurgent party on the right.

Farage and Bardella signed an agreement that, if both parties win power, the UK would intercept boats crossing the Channel with France accepting their return.

But it was overshadowed by questions about two aides who have stepped down.

Undercover filming broadcast by Channel 4 News and filmed by Verbatim Investigations shows Dan Jukes, one of Nigel Farage's closest advisers, and Reform's head of policy James Orr, meeting a man posing as the British-based son of a rich American.

Jukes appears to suggest a way to evade electoral law, which only allows donations from people based, or companies registered, in the UK.

Farage told reporters this afternoon that the party had done nothing wrong, and the comments were "loose pub talk" and a "bit of boasting and a bit of jack the laddery". But both aides – who were crucial to Reform's rise from insurgency to a dominant political party – have now stepped down while an internal investigation takes place.

Jukes denies any wrongdoing. He says he has "stepped back from politics in order to clear my name." Orr told Sky News he agreed to step down and will cooperate fully with the investigation.

But this is a bigger problem for Reform than the careers of two aides, however senior. As pollsters More in Common told delegates here in Birmingham, "perceptions of sleaze now rank as the main barrier stopping people from backing Reform."

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And this story risks further spreading that perception. Walking around here at conference, it is not hard to find frustration, even anger, that the party is in this situation.

Plenty here see the undercover filming as part of a witch hunt against the party.

Others despair they are once again facing similar allegations to the ones they were trying to escape.

So has the opportunity to talk about wider issues been lost?

Nigel Farage's big speech at the end of the conference day was delayed - but when he got going, the Reform UK leader decided not to avoid the latest allegations around his party's approach donations. Instead he launched a carefully-balanced rebuttal.

Elsewhere in the speech, he did lay out his party's significant successes over the past year - including high-profile defection and victories in May's English local, Scottish and Welsh elections.

We saw a roll call of his long-term campaign messages: "Britain is broken", "Britain needs Reform" and "we will stop the boats".

The was some new policy about how he'd declare a "national emergency" on day one of a Reform-led government with parliament potentially sitting "24 hours a day" and "six days a week".

But Farage seemed to have decided to leave much of his party's policy announcements to the speeches of his colleagues Robert Jenrick, Richard Tice and Zia Yusuf. These will continue on Saturday.

And there was also a more-detailed attack on Andy Burnham than we've previously seen - Farage attempted to frame the new administration as a "continuity government", and said that the creation of Number 10 North would mean "bigger government, more taxes and more failure".

His speech then ended rather abruptly. It was shorter, and more off-the-cuff than expected. The party members seem to enjoy it.

But amid a barrage of wider questions about the party's finances, it is unlikely to draw a line under the significant problems now facing the Reform UK leader.