Reform UK would be on course to win in May’s local elections – except Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner has axed key votes. The Telegraph has more.
The first major survey to predict the May 1st votes has found that Nigel Farage’s party is set to win control of, or be the largest party on, eight councils compared with the Conservatives’ 10.
This suggests the ballot will be a significant success for the Right-wing party, which currently controls no councils, providing the first concrete evidence since the General Election of its surge in support.
However, had elections in a further nine areas not been delayed, Reform would have won 12 councils to the Tories’ 11. The poll findings are likely to spark demands for all the votes to go ahead without delays.
Last month, Ms Rayner, the Deputy Prime Minister, announced that elections in some counties would be postponed to pave the way for a huge local government reorganisation.
It prompted allegations that Labour was undermining democracy, and Mr Farage accused the Tories of “running scared” after a string of Conservative-run county councils requested that their elections be delayed.
The analysis for the Telegraph was done using the Multilevel Regression and Post-stratification method (MRP), which allows pollsters to take survey results and predict results in individual seats.
It involves talking to many more people than a typical poll – in this case, more than 5,400 – and drilling down into the demographic details of both respondents and constituencies.
The survey shows for the first time how support for Reform has grown since the General Election, with the party set to upend the political status quo at the local elections.
The polling was carried out as Reform became engulfed in civil war after Rupert Lowe, one of its MPs, was reported to police for allegedly threatening the party’s Chairman.
Mr Lowe has denied any wrongdoing and claimed the allegations were political revenge for his criticism of Mr Farage’s leadership. …
A Reform spokesman said: “As we have been saying all along, Labour has cancelled these elections to try and thwart the rise of Reform. We haven’t heard a big debate about this, because both Labour and the Conservatives are terrified of the rise of Reform.
“This denial of our democracy is something that is fundamentally un-British and undemocratic. It shows how rotten the whole system is now in British politics.”
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