Nigel Farage’s Reform closes in on Tories: poll

Reform has been boosted by 7,000 new members since Nigel Farage became leader, as new polling put the party within two points of the Tories.

Reform has been boosted by 7,000 new members since Nigel Farage became leader, as new polling put the party within two points of the Tories.

The party is hoping the “Farage factor” will bring in millions in donations as it eyes success in a number of seats and believes his return to frontline politics has pulled in former Tory voters.

A poll carried out by YouGov for Sky News yesterday put Labour at 40 per cent, the Conservatives at 19 per cent and Reform at 17 per cent. Most of the survey was carried out after Farage’s announcement that he would become leader and run as an MP.

Survation said Reform UK have a chance of winning in Clacton, where Farage is standing, Gainsborough and North West Norfolk. It is also thought he will give Richard Tice, the former leader, a boost in his race in Boston & Skegness.

“It does change the game,” a Reform source said. “Tory central office on Tuesday thought ‘we’ve squared him away, he’s running around the country and that’s a bit of a problem’ and then ‘oh bollocks’.

“The fact we’ve got 7,000 new members, I’m prepared to bet at least 3,000 of those were Tory members until recently,” the party source said.

Meanwhile, the party is likely to overhaul its structure after the election in an attempt to become more democratic and Tice said he would have to “wait and see” if money he ploughed into the party was returned.

The new members will have bolstered Reform’s finances by about pounds 175,000 as each pay pounds 25 to join, and even before Farage’s return was announced the party had raised more than pounds 500,000 this week after one donor pledged to match-fund membership donations up to pounds 250,000.

But it is hoped Farage will further solidify the finances after the party has relied on more than pounds 1 million in donations and loans from Tice in recent years, and candidates were asked to pay their own pounds 500 deposits.

Asked if his money would be returned, Tice told Times Radio: “There’s lots of options but the real point is with my seed funding for this party we have grown from zero to mid-teens [in the polls], something no one else has done.”

Reform sources believe the party will need pounds 3 million to run an effective campaign. In comparison, the Liberal Democrats spent pounds 14 million in 2019.

Next month’s election is set to be the most expensive to date, after the government raised the spending limit for parties to pounds 35 million. Farage said this week that there was “serious money” starting to come into the party but “we’re not going to have pounds 30 million”.

As well as targeting diehard Tories, Reform is also convinced it can take voters who would have returned to Labour after flirting with the Conservatives in 2019.

The Times