Reform UK poised for breakthrough which could deliver election

Reform UK may be on the brink of its greatest electoral breakthrough yet with the largest study of its kind finding support for Nigel Farage's party could top 40%. Sir Keir Starmer was able to deliver Labour's landslide victory with the support of just 33.7% of voters - but new research has found 42% of Britons who are likely to vote would consider backing Reform in a general election.

It now leads "among pub garden enthusiasts, Wimbledon watchers and Britons who like fish and chips". The study suggests last year's election success which saw it win five MPs was "just the tip of the iceberg". A party spokesman said the country has witnessed a "complete realignment of British politics" and Reform is "just getting started".

The findings come as Mr Farage and his supporters converge in Birmingham for the biggest Reform conference yet. Reform is already in first place in the opinion polls with the support of around three in 10 voters and the study will fuel hopes among activists Mr Farage will replace Sir Keir Starmer as prime minister at the next election.

The study by More in Common and UK in a Changing Europe shows how Reform UK is now commanding "mainstream" support. Researchers polled 3,000 Reform supporters and a further 2,000 people who would consider backing the party, as well as holding focus groups. They found Reform supporters "increasingly look like the average Briton" and are "roughly as likely as the wider public to support gay marriage and access to abortion".

Labour has lost nearly one in 10 of its 2024 supporters to Reform, they claim, with the Tories losing a quarter of its backers.

Reform supporters are "Britain's most dissatisfied voters" with 85% thinking the country is "getting worse". Sixty-two per cent gave Sir Keir Starmer a "zero out of 10" rating, and nearly half named money as their biggest source of stress.

Reform made history last year when it won five MPs in the July election but since then, the study finds, it has reached "broad swathes of the electorate that Ukip or the Brexit Party could not reach".

The gender gap in Reform's support has also narrowed. At the election "around 1.4 men voted Reform for every woman". This has shrunk to 1.2 men for every woman.

And while fewer than one in 10 of the country's 18-24-year-olds support the Conservatives, "Reform's vote share remains above 20% among every age group".

The study found four in five Reform supporters do not hold a university degree and are more likely than backers of any other party to have vocational or technical qualifications. Researchers learned Reform supporters are "less likely than any other voter group to say that they felt happy most or every day" and are the "most likely to say that they feel angry most days".

Nine out of 10 think that the world is "becoming a more dangerous place" - more than any other group.

While 43% of Reform supporters say democracy does not work for ordinary people, this was the case of just 35% of Britons. Seven in 10 (69%) Reform backers thought the country needed a "strong leader who is willing to break the rules".

The top reason Reform supporters give for backing the party is its policies on immigration (62%) with around a third saying "the country needs something new".

Three in 10 said they would vote Reform because they think Mr Farage would be a good Prime Minister, with just as many saying they supported the party because its two main rivals were incompetent.

The study suggests Labour's shock decision to roll back entitlement to the winter fuel allowance drove people into Mr Farage's arms.

A third of those who have abandoned Sir Keir's party for Reform since the election said Labour's "failure to protect the vulnerable" was among the top reasons for the switch.

Reform supporters are more likely to want to see net migration fall - 86%, compared with 58% of the wider public. But they are in line with mainstream opinion on other social issues.

Fifty-nine per cent support gay marriage - just below the 63% figure for the public as a whole. On abortion, 46% of the public and Reform supporters want to keep the legal limit at 24 weeks - with just a quarter of the party's backers wanting it reduced.

The research picks up on differences between Reform's new supporters and those who voted for it last year. While 52% of 2024 voters "strongly oppose net zero", this was the case for just 39% of new enthusiasts. And while 75% of these new recruits sympathise with Ukraine, this is the case for just six out of 10 of the party's 2024 support base.

Anand Menon, director of UK in a Changing Europe, said: "Reform UK has expanded its supporter base significantly since the election and is no longer a niche protest party. The different shades of opinion within its voter base - not least on issues like the climate and inequality - will have to be handled with care if the Party wants to hold this coalition together, and could be exploited by its opponents."

A Reform spokesman said: "Over the past 12 months we have seen a complete realignment of British politics - voters are waking up to the failures of both Labour and the Conservatives. In the next four years will prove we have a radical plan for government - watch this space, we are just getting started."

Luke Tryl, director of More in Common, said: "What jumps out from this research is how difficult it now is to pigeonhole Reform voters; as their support base has grown, their voters look more and more like the average Briton. That brings with it challenges too; can Reform balance the more radical demands of its most engaged online supporters with its more cautious recent converts?

"Can Reform maintain its disillusioned broad church with a focus on immigration, or does a coalition split right and left on key economic policy questions prove ultimately too unstable?"