Nigel Farage has topped a ‘best Prime Minister’ poll as bookmakers make him the 3/1 favourite to be next PM ahead of the May 1st local elections. Can anything break the Reform leader’s momentum, asks Kamal Ahmed in the Telegraph. Here’s an excerpt.
Momentum is with the Reform leader, who confounds established opinion more often than he confirms it. The United Kingdom is no longer in the European Union and Farage is now MP for Clacton, leading three other Reform MPs in the House of Commons. It was four, until an internal party row saw Rupert Lowe ejected from the party. The member for Great Yarmouth now sits as an independent.
The by-election in Runcorn and Helsby and local elections across England are next. From a standing start, polls suggest Reform could win as many as eight councils, just behind the Conservatives on 10. If the party’s candidate, Sarah Pochin, loses in Runcorn to Labour it will be a surprise, despite Reform being more than 30 percentage points behind Labour in the seat at the last election. The Tories are already fearing embarrassment.
Two years ago you could have demanded very long odds on Farage ever making it to Number 10. Now he is now 3/1 favourite to be the next Prime Minister. The once laughable has become possible.
The two old parties – for that is how they feel – are scrambling to respond. Labour has now attacked Farage and Reform twice on health and particularly the NHS, where the party’s policy on introducing insurance mechanisms is vague. Kemi Badenoch said that it was “no time for a reality TV star” (Farage has appeared on I’m A Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here) in an effort to channel Gordon Brown’s “no time for a novice” broadside against the inexperienced David Miliband.
Nothing is sticking. New polling for the Telegraph by Ipsos reveals that when asked who would do a “good job as Prime Minister”, Farage comes out on top on 28%. Keir Starmer is 1% behind, and Ed Davey 2%. Badenoch is languishing at 18%, her step-by-step approach to formulating a new set of Tory policies failing to register with voters who are still not listening to the ‘natural party of government’.
Reform’s strong suits are clear. Voters are attracted by “immigration under control”, “British values” and “in touch with what people really think”. Farage is weaker on being a “divisive figure”, his closeness to Donald Trump and whether the party has the intellectual depth to actually form a government. As a disruptor, he has no competition. …
May 1st is the next stepping stone. If Reform wins control of a number of councils and any of the mayoral elections, for the first time voters will be able to hold the party to account. Governing, as Labour is finding, is much harder than campaigning. “Let’s fix broken Britain,” Farage told 10,000 people in Birmingham. “I’m not mucking about.” The old parties that once commanded the comfortable heights of majority support are very clear that he is not.
Worth reading in full.
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