Blow For Nigel Farage As Reform UK Slump In New Election Polling
Support for Reform UK has slumped with barely a month to go until crucial elections across the country.
In a major blow for Nigel Farage, two new opinion polls suggest the momentum the right-wing party has enjoyed over the last year is stalling.
A survey for pollsters Norstat for the Sunday Times shows that Reform support has fallen by four points to 15% in Scotland, where the party is in a fight with Labour to come second behind the SNP.
Meanwhile, a poll by Lord Ashcroft for the Mail on Sunday suggests Reform has lost its outright lead across the UK for the first time in more than a year.
It puts the party on 21% alongside the Tories and Greens, with Labour trailing on just 17%.
The findings will alarm Reform bosses, who regularly boast about the party’s poll leads.
Voters in Scotland, England and Wales will go to the polls on May 7 in the biggest test of public opinion since the 2024 general election.
Labour is heading for “a total bloodbath”, according to one polling expert, with the Tories also expected to suffer major losses.
Both Reform and the Greens and on course to make major gains as voters drift away from the two main parties.
Nevertheless, the latest polling suggests the scale of the Reform breakthrough may not be as significant as previously thought.
The party has endured a difficult start to the election campaign, with a succession of candidates either quitting or being dumped.
HuffPost UK also revealed last month how the party is being forced to ask people – including a Lib Dem councillor – to be “paper candidates”, suggesting they are struggling to find enough recruits.
Meanwhile, the party was forced to sack its housing spokesman over comments he made about the Grenfell Tower tragedy.
Simon Dudley, who had been in the post for less than a month, said “everyone dies in the end” and “fires happen” as he claimed there is now too much regulation in the building industry.
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