A UK polling firm favoured by the right-wing media and founded by former Tory staffers is guilty of “clear” rule breaches, the British Polling Council has said.
In a statement on its website, the UK polling body said that the rule breaches “may have been deliberate”, and it expected JL Partners to come forward with further information.
JL Partners was founded by James Johnson, who was Theresa May's senior opinion research adviser in No 10, and Tom Lubbock, who previously ran polling at Conservative Campaign Headquarters.
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The firm found itself in the spotlight after undercover reporters with the group Verbatim filmed Reform UK officials allegedly conspiring to breach UK law with a “donation in kind” from a fake US donor.
The fake donor is alleged to have funded JL Partners polling for Reform UK, while the firm concealed the true identity of who it was working for.
The polling results appeared in The Telegraph and The Times but were not reported to be linked to Reform UK either in the articles or on the JL Partners website.
Labour MP Chris Curtis, a former pollster, called on the British Polling Council and the Market Research Society, of which JL Partners is a member, to investigate.
“Of particular concern is undercover footage released by Channel 4 in which the co-founder of JL Partners James Johnson appears to acknowledge the problem directly. He refers to ‘a little bit of… informal rule bending we did with our last [poll]’ and goes on to say ‘when we published those results we should have disclosed who the client was’,” Curtis said.
“I would therefore ask the BPC and MRS to establish, among other matters, who JL Partners understood to be the client for each of the three polls; who provided the brief and agreed the questionnaire; what information JL Partners held about Reform UK's involvement; how the identity of the paying entity was recorded and checked; what representations were made to the newspapers publishing the results; why Reform UK's involvement was not disclosed when the polls were published or subsequently on JL Partners' website; and whether JL Partners was aware of any intention to keep the polling or its funding outside publicly reported political donations.”
A statement released by the BPC said: “British Polling Council Rule 2.1 states that all data and research findings made on the basis of social or political polls conducted in the United Kingdom by member organisations that enter the public domain, must include reference to the client commissioning the survey.
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“With respect to the Channel 4 News investigation of polling apparently commissioned by Reform and conducted by JL Partners, it is clear there have been breaches of British Polling Council Rule 2.1. According to the programme, this may have been deliberate.
“We are seeking further information from the BPC member concerned and expect them to make information available after further consideration.”
A statement on the MRS website says: “We are aware of the Channel 4 reporting involving an MRS Company Partner.
“The matter is being referred to the Market Research Standards Board (MRSB) for review in line with its established complaint procedures.”
Journalist Michael Crick said on social media: "After C4News's expose how will anyone take JL Partners seriously as pollsters ever again, or their boss James Johnson?"
In a lengthy statement, JL Partners accepted that they had breached British Polling Council rules, and claimed they had "immediately contacted" the body after becoming aware.
The company said: "In the period January 22 2026 to July 11 2026, JL Partners was in a commercial client relationship with an entity, IL Office LLC. This entity paid for three pieces of opinion research work during that time.
"We were given to understand that IL Office LLC, which was originally introduced to JL Partners by figures in Reform UK, was the family office of a UK-based philanthropist, William Lockwood ...
"Although JL Partners was aware that a relationship existed between IL Office LLC and Reform UK, we were not informed of the precise nature, extent or duration of that relationship, nor would we expect to be given details of that kind. However, we understood that their relationship was regarded as private, and we respected that.
"There appeared to be nothing out of the ordinary about IL Office LLC and we found Mr Lockwood to be an engaging and well informed individual. In short, we had no grounds for concern. The polls paid for by IL Office LLC were conducted to the same high standard of professionalism as all the work produced by JL Partners. The research and methodology were robust and we have every confidence in the accuracy of the results."
It went on: "Like most pollsters, JL Partners has an ongoing programme of media engagement to publicise our output. As part of that, we approached newspapers and offered the finished IL Office LLC-funded polls to them on an exclusive basis. It was a straightforward process: the findings were newsworthy; the papers in question agreed; and several articles appeared subsequently.
"For JL Partners, this is routine work. Some polls are commissioned in-house while others are commissioned by clients. Our usual practice is to inform a media partner when a poll has been commissioned by a particular client. In the case of the polls that IL Office LLC had paid for, we did not offer that information proactively. While there is no legal requirement to do so, it was a lapse of judgement that was not consistent with the approved procedures of JL Partners or with rule 2.1 of guidelines of the British Polling Council, of which JL Partners is a member.
"JL Partners only became fully aware of this issue when we discovered that although the client whose payments we received in good faith was indeed an entity called IL Office LLC, this was, in fact, a specially constructed front, that the man calling himself ‘William Lockwood’ was, in reality, an undercover journalist and, insofar as we can tell, the whole exercise was paid for by, and used the resources of, a climate campaign group. The matter was further complicated by the revelation that JL Partners was not in fact the principal target of the investigation which was, it now appears, Reform UK.
"As one of Britain’s leading opinion research companies, JL Partners holds itself to high standards and, for that reason, we immediately contacted the British Polling Council and informed its officers that it was our judgement that we had breached rule 2.1. They concurred and we are now working with the BPC to agree the best and most transparent way to update the client description on the relevant data tables, provide additional information as well as take any remedial action they may advise. In addition, JL Partners is conducting an internal review of our procedures with the intention of tightening them to strengthen our safeguards for the future."
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