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The Liberal Democrats have created a “Farage fighting fund” as money pours in from donors hoping the party will stem the rising tide of Reform UK across swaths of England and Wales.
The Lib Dems have received £100,000 from donors in recent weeks ahead of local elections on May 1, with a specific mandate to repel the growth of Nigel Farage’s populist party. A further £75,000 has been committed to fund campaigning in next year’s Senedd elections in Wales, where Reform is expected to perform well.
The party hopes the fund will reach £1mn this year to help step up production of campaign materials and digital ads to counter Reform in key areas where the Lib Dems are already strong locally. It believes it is best placed to neutralise the threat posed by growing support for Reform in counties including Devon, Cornwall and Shropshire.
The funds come on top of £1mn already donated to the party so far in 2025, which is highly unusual for the Lib Dems so far out from a general election.
“Normally at this time of year, at this point in the election cycle, it would be tumbleweed, but we’re getting a huge amount of support,” said one party strategist. “We’re being seen as a bulwark against Farage.”
The elections in England where the third and fourth largest parties in British politics are going head to head include the tight Hull and East Yorkshire mayoralty race, which both parties say they are confident they can win.
The Lib Dems already control the local council in Hull, but Reform is the bookies’ favourite.
Reform is hoping to win more than 200 of the 1,641 council seats up for grabs next month, particularly across Durham, Doncaster, Lancashire, Kent and Lincolnshire.
Polling expert Sir John Curtice wrote on Monday that this set of local elections was unprecedented because of the exceptionally weak polling performance of the two major parties in British politics, which has left the field open for smaller parties to flourish.
The contests will take place almost exclusively in traditionally staunch Conservative areas, meaning the Tories have the most to lose. They are defending nearly 1,000 seats.
The Lib Dems meanwhile are hoping they can overtake the Conservatives to become the second biggest party in local government, after Labour, by targeting Conservative-run councils in Shropshire, Wiltshire, Oxfordshire, Cambridge, Devon and Gloucestershire.
In a sign of the looming threat posed by Reform, an MRP poll conducted by More in Common found that if a general election were held today, Reform would win 180 seats, the most of any party, with the Conservatives and Labour tied on 165 seats.
Lib Dem leader Sir Ed Davey told the Financial Times last month that when campaigners were “in front of people, knocking on doors, the support for Farage just dissipates”, and argued that any future electoral pact between the Tories and Reform would be a boon for his party.
“You’d see a lot of people who previously voted Conservative — even at the last election — coming to us,” he said, referring to moderate Tory voters who would be unwilling to countenance voting for a party with Farage in a leadership role.
Reform has been polling particularly strongly in Wales ahead of the Welsh government elections next year, with some polls placing it ahead of Labour and Plaid Cymru, on about 25 per cent of the vote.
Reform has been sending personalised letters from Farage to every home in England where there are eligible voters ahead of local elections.
Some of these letters start: “Nothing works any more. You struggle to get a GP appointment. Your taxes keep rising. Families struggle with soaring bills. Britain’s immigration system is broken.”
When the Lib Dems sent an email to members outlining the personalised letter campaign by Reform, it received £20,000 in donations within days, according to party strategists.
One Lib Dem figure involved in fundraising said the object of the specific “Farage fighting fund” — beyond the obvious sales strategy — is to signpost to donors that their money will be spent on something they “really care about”.
“We will use it really smartly in the best places and it will all be about opposing Reform,” they said.
