A new YouGov poll suggests that the Conservatives will likely lose more seats to Reform UK than the Labour Party. The Sky News-commissioned survey among 5,621 voters revealed that only 11 out of 100 2019-Tory voters intend to vote for Labour at the next general election, with 12 per cent confessing that they will switch allegiances to Reform UK, Nigel Farage’s right-wing party. While hardly surprising, the survey highlights how difficult it will be for Keir Starmer to win over a significant number of Tory supporters.
A mere four out of 10 voters said they would vote Conservative again, with 23 per cent admitting they didn’t know and seven per cent of survey participants revealing their intention not to go to the polls at all. Tory election strategists believe that their 2019 supporters represent the most sought-after group of voters, intending to craft messaging to sure up their support once again. In the 2019 election, the Conservatives enjoyed the support of 44 per cent of all voters, but polls suggest that this figure has since plummeted to 24 per cent.
Of the 2019 Tory voters, only 28 per cent said they would definitely vote Conservative again, while 22 per cent expressed a strong likelihood for continued Tory support. Nearly a fifth of the same group said they would not vote for the Conservatives again. The only good news for Sunak is that his rating among those voters is up by seven points, comparing favourably with Starmer’s -61 score.
In the overall poll, Labour is still far ahead on 48 per cent, with the Liberal Democrats on 9, the Reform UK on 8, and the Greens on 5 per cent in the latest poll. With undecided voters to be won over, all parties will need to hone in on their priority issues.
The poll reveals that immigration is the most pressing, which has already led to the Conservatives prioritising it. YouGov poll head Patrick English considers the undecided a “crucial set of voters”.
“When you really drill down into what type of voters these are, who they are, what they think about issues, there do seem to be some encouraging numbers for the Conservatives.
“They rate Rishi Sunak higher than they rate Keir Starmer”, he said.
“They rate the Conservative Party higher than they do the Labour Party.
“They care about the issues the Conservatives want to talk about, such as immigration, to a much greater extent than those who are ready to make the jump to Labour.
“And that’s why, at the moment, we think only around one in 10 of them are telling us that they’re seriously considering voting Labour at the next election.”
Conservatives will have to fight to win over Reform UK Voters
YouGov also questioned Reform UK supporters on the party’s chances of securing seats. More than two-thirds believe the party will be unlikely or even very unlikely to win seats in their constituency. Just how many candidates the party intends to run has not been revealed, even though party leader Richard Tice said they will field a candidate for every seat up for grabs.
Less than a third of Reform UK supporters said they would vote Tory in the absence of a UK Reform candidate. In 2019, the then Brexit Party didn’t run in constituencies with Tory candidates. But at that time, Brexit was the main issue, and the political landscape has shifted considerably since then. The strong allegiance to the Conservatives and their leader, Boris Johnson, has evaporated from an 84 per cent support rating for Johnson by Brexit party faithful down to 21 per cent of Reform UK party supporters approving of Rishi Sunak. The only silver lining for the PM is Starmer’s catastrophic score, but the party will have to work hard to appeal to those leaning toward Reform UK.
Just what the general public thinks of Ukip/Brexit/Reform UK is yet to be discovered, with YouGov currently conducting an opinion poll on their website.
