Nigel Farage’s Reform UK was handed another fresh polling high on Wednesday, appearing to confirm his historic performance in last week’s England elections was anything but a fluke.
Major British pollster YouGov has placed Reform UK on 29 per cent in a poll taken between the 5th and 6th of May, the highest result for the party with them yet. This gives Nigel Farage’s faction a clear seven-point lead over Labour, comprehensively out of the territory of a margin of error and a massive 12 points ahead of the Conservatives, floundering on 17 per cent.
Another UK pollster, More in Common, also has new polling putting Reform on 27 per cent, trailed by Labour on 23 and the Conservatives on 21, with the top issues for the country being the cost of living and immigration levels. Also of relevance is the net approval rating of the leaders of Britain’s political parties, with Nigel Farage emerging as the most approved of on -3, just a few points shy of having a rare in politics net-positive rating. The Prime Minister, for instance, remains low on -38 per cent net approval and Kemi Badenoch fares only a little better on -23.
While national vote share is difficult to map directly onto seats in a first past the post system, analysis by GB News suggests if the YouGov poll was replicated at a General Election it would be more than enough to give Reform UK a majority in the UK Parliament. Stating Reform could win as many as 369 seats with such a result, this polling puts Farage’s popularity nationwide on a par with the Boris Johnson landslide election victory in 2019.
Nevertheless, it is a long road to the next General Election, which doesn’t have to be called for another four years. Responding to this reality, Farage himself has prioritised winning local and regional elections in the meanwhile, both to give voters a taste for backing Reform at the ballot box, and to build a national campaigning infrastructure ready to challenge the 2029 elections from a position of strength.
Winning the English local elections last week was part of that, but regional elections in Wales are due next year, and further polling appears to suggest Farage stands to do well there too, even in the UK home nation that has been dominated by the left for decades. There, the Welsh left-nationalists lead on 30 per cent but the only other party seriously in contention is Reform UK on 25 per cent, trailed by Labour and the Conservatives in the teens.
The Reform party responded to the positive polling on Wednesday, stating: “Only Reform UK can beat Labour at the next General Election.”
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