Britain’s top pollster has folded in a dispute with Brexit boss Nigel Farage after facing accusations of systematically downplaying his Reform UK party in national polling.
Potentially creating a chilling effect on the upstart party’s historic rise amid the collapse in trust in the Westminster Establishment, pollster YouGov has consistently recorded Reform UK’s support at approximately 5 percentage points lower than a spread other British survey firms, The Telegraph reported. While YouGov put the party at 24.8 per cent, others had placed support levels at between 29 and 31 points.
YouGov has claimed that the disparity was a result of their surveys factoring in the potential of tactical voting, saying that they asked would-be voters which party they would back in their local constituency, rather than who they favoured overall nationally.
Mr Farage claimed that since they failed to provide the national support levels, the YouGov methodology violated the British Polling Council (BPC) rules, which stipulate that if respondents significantly change their answer between two questions, then both questions and results should be published.
The Brexit champion also claimed that YouGov was also using a so-far undisclosed third element to arrive at its tactical voting projections, which Mr Farage said contribute to the “bizarre” polling results.
Although YouGov initially defended its polling methods, it has since decided to publish its national preference support, as most other pollsters do.
In a letter to Mr Farage, YouGov’s global head of politics, Anthony Wells, said: “While data from the voting-intention question without a constituency-prompt is not part of our published headline figures, we are happy to include this in future published tables.”
Responding to the reversal, Mr Farage said: “YouGov were deliberately giving a misleading picture, and I’m pleased to say that, because of our complaint, it will now be corrected.”
However, the Reform UK chief also noted that the British Polling Council should not have allowed the practices in the first place.
Speaking anonymously, another top pollster from a major survey firm commented, “This is a pretty major shift from YouGov. From an industry standpoint, it is definitely welcome news: the modelling they are doing is unusual, so the more transparency on that the better.”
The change from YouGov comes as Reform seeks to vastly expand its power base across the country ahead of the May local elections, which are seen not only as a referendum on Prime Minister Starmer’s faltering Labour Party but also as a significant test for Farage’s party at the ballot box.
Should the populist party make significant gains in the upcoming elections, as is currently expected, it will greatly expand Reform’s network of elected officials. This will be critical for the party as it seeks to challenge nationally at the next general election, currently scheduled for 2029.
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