Nigel Farage will “absolutely” become Britain’s next prime minister, Reform UK chairman Zia Yusuf predicted as a poll showed the populist party overtaking the governing Labour Party for the first time.
A poll conducted this week by the Find Out Now survey firm found Reform UK surged to 24 per cent in support, surpassing Sir Keir Starmer’s Labour Party for the first time. The leftist governing party fell to 23 per cent in support just five months after securing a historic general election victory.
While the survey put the so-called Conservative Party on top at 26 per cent, Reform UK chairman Zia Yusuf said that the surge in support for the rebranded Brexit Party demonstrated momentum that will “absolutely” result in Nigel Farage ascending to Downing Street at the next election.
Speaking to GB News on Friday, Yusuf said of Farage’s chances of becoming PM: “I’ve been saying that for some time. Absolutely. And if you look at the extrapolation of the data a year ago, Reform UK was polling at eight per cent and had 15,000 members. As we speak today, we have 105,000 members.
“We are polling at between 22 and 24 per cent, depending on the poll. This has happened in the space of a year. The underlying factors that have given rise to Nigel coming out of retirement, to so many people getting behind our movement in such an extraordinary way.
“Not only are those things not going to improve, they’re going to continue to deteriorate at an alarming rate because this government are a bunch of over-promoted student politicians who are captured by ideology.”
The poll comes on the back of two major defections from the Tories, starting with ex-Conservative cabinet minister Dame Andrea Jenkyns, who declared last week that her former party was “beyond salvage”.
Dame Andrea, who was among those who lost her seat in parliament as Rishi Sunak’s party was wiped out at the general election by Starmer’s Labour, said that only Reform UK could “deliver the fresh start this country so desperately needs”.
This was followed by Tim Montgomerie, the founder of the influential pro-Tory blog Conservative Home, joining Farage’s ranks.
The former advisor to Boris Johnson and a Tory member for 33 years said this week that his decision to jump ship from his former party was motivated by the release of the latest immigration figures, which showed net migration hit nearly a million people under the previous Conservative government.
“It’s been coming for a long time”, Montgomerie told GB News. “The final straw for me, really, was last Thursday’s immigration numbers. How many times have you been sat with a Tory over the last few years and they said they were controlling immigration?”
Key to Reform’s strategy for the next election will not only be taking support from the Tories but also targeting working-class, Brexit-supporting areas of the country which have traditionally supported the Labour Party, many of whom have felt left behind as the party has increasingly relied on the support of affluent urban voters and ethnic minorities.
In the July election, Reform won over four million votes; however, due to the limitations of the first-past-the-post voting system, the party was only awarded five MPs. Yet, Reform came in second place to Labour in 98 constituencies, indicating the party may be a stronger challenger to the left-wing party in Red Wall areas than the Tories.
