The Reform UK party has a clear lead in a national poll for the first time, standing out ahead of the traditional parties of government who have dominated British politics for the past century.
If there was a general election now, Nigel Farage’s Reform UK party would take 26 per cent of the vote, followed by the Conservatives at 23 per cent and Labour at 22 per cent, pollster Find Out Now says in their latest series of polls on the British electorate. While Reform UK has tied for first in a nationwide survey before, this is the first time it has stood out in front alone.
The pollster notes that while Labour and Conservative support has fluctuated over the past three months, Reform UK’s rating has only climbed in their surveys, rising steadily from 22 to 26 points in six polls. Further, they state the key reason for Reform’s strong performance is they are the only party top have retained almost all of their 2024 election voters while also picking up new voters from other parties.
Broken down by gender, Reform is further ahead even, with 31 per cent of men polled by Find Out Now backing the party, a pattern replicated in other European states and their respective sovereigntist parties.
Labour and the Conservatives have dominated British politics, one or the other always leading the government, for a century. Before then, the Conservatives and the Liberals ruled, but the Liberals had a very difficult 20th century and have been reduced to a rump of their former selves, now reckoned to be polling at 12 per cent.
All UK pollsters have slightly different polling methodologies and, in some cases, have pursued new methods after a series of catastrophic industry failures in the past decade to predict major events, not least the 2015 general election and the Brexit vote. Find Out Now, which is a member of the British Polling Council — which presumes to guarantee some basic standard of transparency in polling methods — says their technique is more responsive than other pollsters, who they say are more focussed on capturing long-term trends than real state-of-the-nation snapshots.
They also say they treat ‘don’t know’ and ‘would not vote’ respondents differently, saying they are doing a better job of just reflecting in their results people who really are likely to turn up to the ballot box on polling day. They state that whether you voted in the last election is a more reliable indicator of whether you would vote next time than whether you tell a pollster you intend to vote in the future.
On the other hand, the independent polling project the UK Election Data Vault notes that Find Out Now was among the least accurate pollsters in predicting the 2024 UK General Election.
Nevertheless, all major pollsters seem to show Reform UK on a strong upward swing and standing among the top legacy players. YouGov found earlier this month that Reform was ahead of the Conservatives and just one point behind Labour, well within the margin of error.
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