Populist party received 25 percent support as Conservative backing fell away.
LONDON — Nigel Farage’s Reform UK overtook Britain’s Labour government in a national opinion poll for the first time Monday evening, putting them in first place ahead of the main opposition Conservatives.
YouGov’s poll, which surveyed 2,223 adults at the start of February, puts Reform UK on 25 percent support.
That’s up two points from YouGov’s previous poll. Labour are meanwhile down three points on 24 percent, with the Tories dropping a point to 21 percent support.
The polling is a long way out from a general election — which does not need to take place until August 2029 — and Reform’s lead is within the margin of error. POLITICO’s Poll of Polls has Labour and Reform level pegging at 25 percent each, with the Conservatives sitting on 22 percent.
Nevertheless, the study will ring alarm bells in No.10 Downing Street, coming just months after Labour won a landslide majority with 33.7 percent of the vote. At the election, Reform UK came third on 14.3 percent.
The results are also grim for Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch, who has been trying to claw back support for Britain’s traditional right-wing party following an election kicking.
YouGov’s latest polling finds nearly a quarter (24 percent) of those who voted Conservative last July would now vote for Reform. Some 43 percent of 2024 Conservative voters favored the two parties merging. Just 31 percent were opposed to that idea.
Badenoch’s favorability rating has also dropped, down to -29 from -25 last month. That puts her behind Farage on -27. His ratings are up from the -32 logged at the last poll.
