Nigel Farage recruits property tycoon Nick Candy as Reform treasurer

As well as cash, Reform UK has been gaining valuable contacts in Westminster.

Last week former Johnson adviser Tim Montgomerie, a veteran Tory commentator who founded the influential Conservative Home website, announced he was defecting to the party, citing immigration as a policy failure he could not forgive.

Farage has a patchy record when it comes to high-profile signings. In his former life as UKIP leader he managed to fall out with figures such as TV personality Robert Kilroy-Silk, Tory defector Douglas Carswell and former EU auditor Marta Andreasen, shortly after unveiling them amid much fanfare.

But he has also managed to attract wealthy backers in the past, such as insurance tycoon Arron Banks, who bankrolled his Brexit campaign.

He is positioning Reform UK as the party for voters hungry for change - a platform Labour won a landslide election victory on just over five months ago.

But Sir Keir Starmer's decision to make difficult and unpopular decisions at the start of his premiership, along with a number of unforced errors, has seen Labour's popularity plummet, as Reform's has risen.

Reform UK sits comfortably in third place ahead of the Liberal Democrats in national opinion polls, and is narrowing the gap with the two main parties.

The fledgling party proved incapable of transforming the size of its support into seats at Westminster in July.

The Liberal Democrats won 3.5 million votes and 72 MPs through their highly-targeted campaign, whereas Reform UK picked up just over four million votes, but only five seats.

Farage is on a mission to learn from the Lib Dems how to make Westminster's first-past-the-post voting system work for his party.

Reform UK's new multi-millionaire chairman Zia Yusuf has taken on the job of "professionalising" the party - no easy task when it has attracted so much controversy in its short life with its choice of candidates in particular.

Farage has faced questions over James McMurdock, the Reform MP for South Basildon and East Thurrock, who has a spent conviction after assaulting his girlfriend in 2006.

The party has said it was aware of the previous conviction when McMurdock was selected as a candidate, and believes "strongly that people can change their lives".

But Reform UK is pledging to vet candidates more thoroughly ahead of next year's local elections in an attempt to avoid embarrassment.

One target is the new mayoral seat in Greater Lincolnshire, where former Conservative MP Andrea Jenkyns has been revealed as the party's candidate.

Reform has so far been seen largely as a threat to the Conservatives - but on the day after the general election, Farage made their strategy clear when he declared: "We're coming for Labour".

The big parties will be watching Reform UK's recent flurry of announcements nervously - and wondering whether they can keep this momentum up.