Nigel Farage is 62, and a Find Out Now poll suggests his stamina could matter to the whole right. Should he decide he cannot last the up to three years left before an election, the survey shows the Tories closing to within five per cent of Reform.
The poll, commissioned by The Mail on Sunday, was built around a different question: whether Kemi Badenoch should do a deal with him. Voters said no, 78 per cent to 22 per cent. Sixty per cent of Conservative voters side with her, and so do 52 per cent of Reform supporters.
A rough few weeks for Reform
Farage has lost ground lately. Andy Burnham beat his party in the Makerfield by-election. Then came questions over a £5million donation from the crypto-billionaire Christopher Harborne. Friends of the Reform leader now say he “needs a rest”, and the Mail describes a man who no longer looks indestructible.
Badenoch has had the opposite run, with strong Commons performances and a victory in the Aberdeen South by-election. On personal ratings she is catching him. Voters rate her better at holding the Government to account, 41 per cent to 30 per cent, and better on the economy, 17 per cent to 14 per cent. Farage keeps a three-to-one lead on immigration.
Asked who would make the best prime minister, respondents put Burnham and Farage level on 19 per cent. Badenoch trails on 14 per cent.
What the numbers say about the next election
Reform polls 26 per cent, Labour 19 per cent and the Conservatives 17 per cent. Expectations of a hung parliament are rising. Burnham’s move into Downing Street is likely to lift Labour, even if briefly, and the Mail says the parties could soon be level.
One scenario worries Tories most. Labour sources say Burnham is willing to strike a deal with the Liberal Democrats after the next election and form a coalition. The paper warns that could leave the Left in charge of Downing Street for most of a decade.
Badenoch made her case in the Mail’s pages last week. “We are not the same and voters are not ours to trade like football cards,” she wrote. She accused Reform of backing “a bigger state, more spending, nationalisation, gimmicks and unfunded giveaways”, and put it this way: “Reform dress like Thatcherites but act like Corbynites.”
