The top reason for former members of the neo-liberal Conservatives defecting to Nigel Farage’s Reform UK is immigration, a YouGov survey found.
Despite having pledged border control in their 2010, 2015, 2017, and 2019 election manifestos, the so-called Conservative Party oversaw record levels of migration, ultimately resulting in the Tories being kicked out of office last year in their worst ever general election defeat.
While the party has attempted to recast itself as hawkish on the border since, their duplicitous failures on immigration appear to continue to haunt the former party of government.
A survey from YouGov of voters who have defected from the Conservatives to Nigel Farage’s Reform party found that 56 per cent were chiefly motivated by a lack of trust in the Tories on the issue of migration.
Although the polling firm found that all 2024 Conservative voters have immigration as one of their top issues, it is particularly pronounced among those who have since switched their allegiance to Reform, at 88 per cent, compared to 64 per cent who have remained supporters of the Conservatives and 56 per cent for undecideds.
The issue of immigration has also been driving support towards the Faragist party from working-class Labour voters, as a separate YouGov survey found last month that 62 per cent of working-class Labour defectors to Reform were chiefly motivated by Labour’s failings on immigration.
In addition to immigration, other factors for Tory defections to Reform included other parties being “worse” at 41 per cent, Reform being seen as “standing up for people like me” at 36 per cent, the party being “closer to my values” at 25 per cent, and Reform being “better placed to win the next election” at 24 per cent.
One in five Conservative defectors (21 per cent) also said that they were motivated by a belief that Nigel Farage would make a good prime minister, while 20 per cent said that Reform has performed better as an opposition party in the House of Commons since the election last year than the Tories.
In total, some 26 per cent of 2024 Conservative voters have switched their support to Reform UK, according to YouGov. The survey found that such defectors were more likely to be male, supporters of Brexit, and over the age of 50.
A two-pronged strategy of courting conservative-minded voters on immigration while advocating for pro-worker economic agenda has seen Farage’s upstart party siphon off support from both Labour and the Conservatives over the past year.
As a result of this, Reform now stands as the clear frontrunner in the polls. While translating national support figures onto local elections is not a precise science, an analysis of major survey last month from Ispos found that Farage’s party could be on pace to win as many as 400 seats at the next election.
Yet, YouGov noted that Reform’s newfound support is not set in stone, with 67 per cent of Tory defectors to the party saying that they would be willing to flip back to their old party. However, Reform’s support among former Labour voters appears to be more solid, with just 13 per cent saying that they would consider voting for Sir Keir Starmer’s party again over Reform.
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