We put the four main party leaders head to head
The political momentum in Britain is very much with Reform UK at present, following record local election gains and a surge in the opinion polls – the party currently sits in first place on 29% in YouGov’s most recent figures.
While Nigel Farage may be riding high right now, one question that should concern the Reform leader is the potential ceiling on support for his party.
Labour may be in a lacklustre second place in the voting intention polls, and suffering from low approval ratings, but when the public are offered the choice of Keir Starmer or Nigel Farage as prime minister, the incumbent holds a commanding lead over the challenger by 44% to 29%.
This represents an eight-point improvement from 36% for Starmer since February, at which point Farage’s score was 26%.
Starmer is the preferred choice of 89% of current Labour voters, 81% of Lib Dems, and 69% of Greens. By contrast, Farage is the pick of 90% of Reform voters, but only 39% of current Tories (28% of whom choose Starmer).
In fact, Farage also loses to Lib Dem leader Ed Davey (41% vs 27%), nor does he surpass embattled Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch, although he is within touching distance at 25% to the Tory’s 29%.
That said, the ‘fight on the right’ is less relevant at the national level, as the contest at the next general election is much more likely to be between Labour and one of the right wing parties. However, the extent to which Nigel Farage is able to coax Tories over to Reform at the next election will be key to his party’s prospects, and the results show that almost as many of the Conservatives’ 2024 electorate would prefer Farage to be prime minister (33%) as Badenoch (38%).
The Conservatives’ challenges are the opposite. With former Tory voters forming the bulk of Reform UK’s 2024 electorate, and having lost a great deal more in the period since then, bringing Reform voters back into the fold is imperative to the party’s revival. However, a mere 7% of those who backed Reform UK last year would prefer to see Badenoch in Number 10, as do just 8% of those who currently intend to back the party.
Is it better for Keir Starmer if Reform UK are the main challengers at the next election?
While Reform UK present such a threat to the two main established parties that both would like to see it derailed before it gains any more momentum, an issue for Keir Starmer is that it may be to his advantage for the public to see the contest at the next election as being one between Reform and Labour.
For while 44% of Britons had said they would prefer Starmer to be prime minister over Farage, that figure falls to 36% when the contest is between Starmer and Badenoch.
This is not because Badenoch proves a more tempting option than Farage, with the 25% preferring her to Starmer slightly lower than the Reform leader’s 29%, but rather because she does not have the same repellent force to left wing voters that Farage does.
Those currently intending to vote Lib Dem and Green are 17pts and 15pts respectively more likely to favour Starmer when his opponent is Farage rather than Badenoch, with a similar rate of increase among current Tory voters, as well as a nine-point increase among current Labour voters.
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Photo: Getty
