REFORM UK are on course to win the next General Election and see Nigel Farage enter Downing Street, according to a new poll.
The YouGov survey of 2012 UK adults, conducted between April 21-22, found that 25% of people said they would back Reform UK in the next Westminster elections. This was up two points on the previous survey, which was run from April 13-14.
Elsewhere, Labour polled at 23% (down one point) and the Tories were at 20% (also down one point). The LibDems scored 16% (up two) and the Greens 10% (down one), while the SNP – who only stand in Scotland – again polled at 3%.
A seat projection from the YouGov poll using Electoral Calculus’s tool predicted Reform would win 254 seats, Labour 183, the Tories 75, the LibDems 71, the Greens four, and the SNP 35.
Reform would therefore emerge as the largest party, but fall 72 seats short of a majority.
A deal with the Tories would put the hard-right Reform UK into government.
A poll for The National conducted over the Christmas period found Scots would back independence by 60% to 40% if Farage were in No 10.
The new YouGov survey reflects what Professor John Curtice described this week as an “unprecedented” time in UK politics where the vote is fracturing into smaller blocs, rather than coalescing around either Labour or the Tories.
In an audio recording obtained by Sky News, Jenrick can be heard saying that he wants the “fight” against Keir Starmer’s party to be “united”.
Asked whether she agreed with her shadow minister’s comments, Badenoch’s spokesperson said on Wednesday: “She agrees that we need to bring centre-right voters together to defeat Labour.”
He added: “What we saw last year was four million people voting for Reform, and they got five MPs and Labour got 400.
“So if we are to defeat Labour, we need to bring those voters back to the Conservative Party.”
Labour Party chair Ellie Reeves, who is also both a government minister and Chancellor Rachel Reeves’s sister, said on Wednesday that Badenoch “needs to urgently come clean as to whether she backs her shadow justice secretary doing grubby deals with Reform behind the electorate’s back, or if she will rule it out”.
Liberal Democrat deputy leader Daisy Cooper said that the comments show “senior Conservatives are plotting a grubby election deal with Nigel Farage”.
The news comes after an anti-far-right summit in Scotland, convened by First Minister John Swinney, aimed to look at how to combat the rise of populist parties like Reform UK.
