LONDON (Reuters) – Nigel Farage’s Reform UK Party overtook Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s Conservative Party in an opinion poll for the first time on Thursday ahead of Britain’s election on July 4.
The poll by YouGov for the Times newspaper put Reform UK on 19%, up from 17% previously, and the Conservatives unchanged on 18%. The opposition Labour Party topped the poll with 37%.
The survey of 2,211 people was carried out June 12-13, after Sunak pledged to cut 17 billion pounds of taxes for working people in his party’s election manifesto.
Reform’s poll rating has risen since Farage, best known for his successful campaign for Britain to leave the European Union, said he was returning to frontline politics, taking over leadership of the party and standing for election to parliament.
“This is the inflection point, the only wasted vote now is a Conservative vote, we are the challengers to Labour and we are on our way,” Farage said in a video posted on X.
A small right-wing party, founded in 2018 as the Brexit Party, Reform backs populist causes such as tougher immigration laws.
Sunak’s campaign has also been hit after he drew sharp criticism for leaving D-Day memorial events earlier than other world leaders.
Other opinion polls show the Conservatives much further ahead of Reform.
Despite overtaking Sunak’s Conservatives in Thursday’s poll – which reflected the share of a nationwide vote – Reform is not forecast to win many parliamentary seats.
Its support is spread comparatively evenly across the country, whereas backing for the larger and more established parties like Labour and the Conservatives is more concentrated by geographic areas.
Britain has a ‘winner takes it all’ electoral system with no proportional representation, which means Reform could pick up millions of votes across the country without coming first in one of the 650 individual constituencies that make up the British parliament.
(Reporting by Kylie MacLellan and William James, Editing by Angus MacSwan)
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