Nigel Farage faces two huge problems says an expert
Nigel Farage faces challenges in his bid to become Prime Minister (Image: Getty)
The chances of Nigel Farage becoming Prime Minister appear to have fallen over the past year, according to a leading polling expert. Reform UK is suffering from “a united left, and a fractured right”, with rival party Restore UK gaining support and the Conservatives holding their position. Meanwhile, voters on the left are uniting behind Labour under new leader Andy Burnham, with some of those who defected to the radical Green Party returning to the fold.
But Nigel Farage is “far from a spent force”, said Luke Tryl, Executive Director of More in Common. He said: “To win the next election, Farage must expand beyond his base and dominate a fragmented right; on both, summer has seen them going backwards, not forwards.” More in Common is a research agency that runs polls and focus groups. Its surveys showed Reform comfortably leading other parties for a period of more than 12 months, from May 2025 until the second half of July this year. Andy Burnham became Prime Minister on July 20.
Polling this time last year showed between 30% and 33% of voters planning to back Reform, with support for Labour falling as low as 21%.
But the most recent More in Common poll showed 27% supporting Labour, 23% supporting Reform and 22% backing the Conservatives.
While there has not been a large surge in support for the Tories, party leader Kemi Badenoch appears to have succeeded in thwarting Mr Farage’s plan to kill her party off and establish Reform as the only viable alternative to Labour on the right.
And rival right-wing party Restore Britain, led by former Reform MP Rupert Lowe, now has the backing of one in ten voters who supported Reform in the 2024 general election.
Mr Tryl said: “Farage’s ascent to Number 10 feels far from the inevitability this summer than it was starting to seem this time last year. A year ago.”
Reform is holding its annual conference in Birmingham this week, and will set out plans for its first 100 days in power if it forms a government.
While Friday’s speech by party leader Nigel Farage will be the highlight, the party also hopes to focus attention on other leading members including business spokesman Richard Tice, home affairs Zia Yusuf, Treasury spokesman Robert Jenrick and more, in a bid to show it has a team ready to form a government.
The party has also set out radical plans to ban people from voting if they don’t speak English, and to remove the right to vote from citizens of Commonwealth countries. Any citizen from a Commonwealth nations currently has the right to vote as long as they are living in the UK.
Reform’s proposed laws would also make it illegal to publish election campaign material in any foreign language.