3 days ago
Pollster warns of ‘political earthquake in UK' after polls show Farage could be PM
Nigel Farage could become the prime minister with an outright majority, the latest polling calculations show as Reform UK surges ahead of Labour and the Conservatives.
After Sir Keir Starmer attacked the Reform UK leader directly in a bid to stem the party's rise, parliament seat prediction site Electoral Calculus has calculated that Mr Farage would win 362 seats if a general election were held tomorrow.
Labour would fall from winning 412 seats at the last general election to second place on 136, while the beleaguered Conservatives would be almost wiped out, winning just 22 seats.
One pollster has suggested that the UK is on the verge of 'a political earthquake', but others have warned against reading too much into the current polls and questioned some of the assumptions behind the Electoral Calculus prediction.
It comes as the latest Techne UK poll for The Independent, revealed that Reform has hit an all time high of 31 per cent (up 1 from last week), nine points above Labour on 22 per cent (unchanged) and almost double Kemi Badenoch 's Tories stuck in third equal on 16 per cent (down 1).
Professor Sir John Curtice warned that there is no absolute figure a party needs to reach to win an overall majority, saying that 'the gap over other parties' and 'geographical spread' of votes are more important.
With Reform votes concentrated in certain regions, he said: 'With a nine-point lead and an evenly spread vote, Reform would be well ahead in seats.'
More in Common pollster, Luke Tryl, suggested that Reform has hit a critical point.
He told The Independent: 'It depends if the electorate remains as fragmented as it is now, then 31% will be enough. But if Starmer can consolidate the left, it probably won't be enough - that's what happens in Canada [when Mark Carney defeated his rightwing opponents].'
Polling expert Lord Hayward warned that council by-elections are a much better indicator than polls, but even then, this was going Reform's way. He noted that Reform had recently won by-elections in a traditional Tory heartland of Canvey Island in Essex and a Labour heartland in Caernarvonshire.
He said: 'You can't have a more contrasted position than winning in those two areas. Currently, only the Lib Dems can hold their seats against Reform, that is what the by-elections are showing.'
But Techne UK's chief executive Michela Morizzo said: 'There can be no doubt this is an earthquake in UK politics.'
The Electoral Calculus prediction, based on the average of current polls, would give Reform an overall majority of 74 seats and pave the way for Mr Farage to be able to implement his radical tax-cutting agenda.
'On these figures, Nigel Farage would be prime minister with a working majority and no need for a coalition with other parties,' Electoral Calculus chief executive Martin Baxter said. The damning forecast also gave Labour just a 1 per cent chance of winning a majority at the next election without a dramatic turnaround in its fortunes.
As part of Sir Keir's bid to halt Reform's rise, he has ramped up his direct attacks on Mr Farage this week, including using a speech on Thursday to warn he would be as damaging as prime minister as Liz Truss.
Labour warned that a Farage government would add £5,500 to an average household's mortgage payments with tens of billions of pounds of unfunded spending commitments. And Sir Keir branded Mr Farage's policies a 'mad experiment', insisting he would 'be exactly the same' as Ms Truss.
He said: 'Apparently [Mr Farage] is in Las Vegas today at a casino, and it's not a surprise, because he said that the Liz Truss budget in his view was the best since 1986.
'That shows his judgment. It shows what he'd do and the result would be exactly the same. I'm not prepared to let that happen.'
Meanwhile, Rachel Reeves will use next month's spending review to unveil tens of billions of pounds of investment in seats in the north and Midlands Labour is hoping to avoid falling to Reform.
The money will fund a slew of road, rail and green energy projects in the north and Midlands, according to reports.
Responding to Sir Keir's attacks, Mr Farage accused the prime minister of being 'obsessed' with him, while dismissing his claims about Reform's policies as 'project fear 2.0' - a reference to the Leave camp's dismissal of warnings about the economic impacts of Brexit.
And Reform chairman Zia Yusuf said:"It is clear that Reform has all the momentum in British politics, and with Labour and the Tories allowing things like immigration and the cost of living to spiral out of control it is no wonder that the British people are turning their backs on the tired two party system.
"Our positive vision for Britain is cutting through and our consistent polling is proof that something is happening out there."
