About three weeks ago, Channel 4 News oversaw a ‘sting operation’ designed to expose Reform and its leader Nigel Farage.
As I was watching the documentary and the dialogues unfolding, I simply thought that this would be a case where the three opinion polls at the heart of this fiasco were made up or fabricated and leaked to the press or that Reform, otherwise, played a role in the questions asked or fiddled around with the methodology of those polls such as choosing the sample or profile of those polled.
It turns out that nobody has raised any concerns with the methodology of the polling or the quality of the work undertaken. The issue is that the opinion polls could be classified as a “donation” from an overseas individual or organisation. Donations from an overseas individual or organisation are forbidden.
In this case, journalists from Verbatim, posing as Reform donors pretending to be a British-based son with a rich American father, paid for more than £30,000 of polling from JL Partners that generated positive headlines for the party.
The rules prohibiting overseas donations are designed to stop foreign interference in our political processes and safeguard our democracy: a noble aim. As noble as that sounds, the irony is not lost on me that the first poll, conducted in January 2026, related to the Labour government’s aborted plans to cancel some local elections, which Reform strongly opposed.
The second poll, published in April 2026, suggested that two-thirds of voters wanted the then prime minister, Keir Starmer, to resign. The third poll, released in June 2026, seemed to show that trade union members are just as keen on Reform as they are with Labour (something unthinkable 10 or even 5 years ago).
The results of these polls appeared on the front pages of the Times and the Daily Telegraph.
The issue is whether opinion polls, paid for by journalists posing as overseas Reform donors, could themselves be classified as a “donation”. Donations from overseas individuals or organisations are prohibited. In this case, around £30,000 was reportedly paid for three opinion polls by JL Partners, which generated positive headlines for Reform in the Times and Daily Telegraph.
The legal question is whether a genuine and robust opinion poll can constitute a “donation” under the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000 (PPERA).
Section 50(2)(a)–(f) defines a “donation” broadly, including gifts of money or property, sponsorship, subscriptions, expenses and “any…services…for the use or benefit of the party”.
Opinion polls are not expressly mentioned. They are plainly not gifts of money or property, subscriptions or similar payments. The potential basis is, therefore, section 50(2)(f): whether the polls constitute a “service…for the use or benefit of the party”.
On a literal interpretation, that might be possible. However, particularly where criminal liability or other serious consequences may follow, legislation is not necessarily construed by literalism alone.
The striking point is that, despite the Act being more than 25 years old, there appears to be no judicial authority or established guidance on the meaning of section 50(2)(f) in this context. It therefore remains an open question whether an opinion poll falls within “services…for the benefit of the party”.
The counter-argument is that “services” should be understood as operational services or resources supplied to a party—such as accounting, IT, printing or building work—rather than activities whose essential character is political communication or expression. An independently commissioned and publicly disseminated opinion poll is arguably closer to the latter.
There are also potentially far-reaching consequences to the broader interpretation. Every opinion poll will, by definition, benefit one political party or another. If that makes it a donation, publicly available polls conducted by newspapers or other organisations could potentially become reportable donations. The same logic could extend to newspaper articles, editorials or even prominent individuals publicly endorsing a political party. Yet it has never been suggested that a newspaper “donates” journalistic services to a party merely because its reporting or editorial position favours that party.
Such an interpretation risks bringing ordinary political expression, and mechanisms for measuring political opinion, within the donation regime. That is significant given the fundamental right to freedom of expression. In R v Secretary of State for the Home Department, ex p Simms [2000] 2 AC 115, the House of Lords confirmed that fundamental rights cannot be overridden by general or ambiguous statutory language.
There is an additional textual point. Schedule 8, paragraph 1(5) of PPERA expressly refers to:
“Market research or canvassing conducted for the purpose of ascertaining polling intentions”
in the context of campaign expenditure. Parliament was, therefore, plainly aware of polling and expressly identified it elsewhere in the same Act. If Parliament intended opinion polling to fall within “services” for the purposes of donations under section 50(2)(f), it could have said so expressly. Indeed, to use a phrase from case-law, “parliament could have easily said so….” (as observed in Thompson v Gould & Co [1910] AC 409).
The distinction is therefore arguably between operational services supplied to a political party and activities whose essential character is political expression, such as independent polling or journalism.
Accordingly, whether the law was broken in relation to these opinion polls is not necessarily as clear-cut as the press coverage of the past week might suggest.
Fadi is our Senior Legal Consultant and has a wealth of experience in handling complex immigration cases, alongside civil litigation and complicated human rights matters including extradition challenges, Interpol Red Notice requests and actions against the police.