The Conservatives have overtaken Reform UK in a poll for the first time in over 500 days, with Kemi Badenoch’s party scoring 23% to Reform’s 22% in a More in Common survey of 3,250 people. Reform, meanwhile, has endured a bruising period following Nigel Farage’s MP resignation and a Clacton by-election widely regarded as a debacle. The Telegraph has the story:
The Conservatives have overtaken Reform UK in an opinion poll for the first time in more than 500 days.
Kemi Badenoch’s party gained 23% of support in a poll of 3,250 people carried out by More in Common between Aug 28 and 31, beating Reform (22%) into third place.
The previous poll to show the Tories ahead of Reform was conducted by Focaldata in April last year. It gave the Tories 24% and Reform 23%.
The Conservatives said the new findings showed they were “coming back” under Mrs Badenoch’s leadership.
However, Reform pointed out that other pollsters still placed it ahead of the Tories and said it expected this to continue.
Mrs Badenoch has seen a rise in her personal popularity in recent months and reshuffled her shadow cabinet last weekend to prepare for the possibility of an early general election.
Andrew Griffith was promoted to shadow chancellor and Tom Tugendhat returned to the fold as shadow foreign secretary, while Sir Mel Stride and Dame Priti Patel both lost their posts.
Meanwhile, Reform has endured a damaging couple of months after Nigel Farage’s resignation as an MP and the subsequent Clacton by-election that descended into farce.
All significant political parties refused to stand against Mr Farage, scuppering his plan for a “people vs the establishment” by-election. While the Reform leader was comfortably re-elected last month, Count Binface, the novelty candidate, was his closest competitor.
A parliamentary investigation into Mr Farage’s donations has since been reopened, which will look at a gift of more than £5 million from Christopher Harborne, a cryptocurrency billionaire.
Labour had a narrow lead of three percentage points in the More in Common survey, polling at 26%. Andy Burnham’s party has enjoyed a surge in popularity since he took over from Sir Keir Starmer as Prime Minister.
The Conservatives’ lead over Reform was within the margin of error, but the poll was the highest Tory vote share since the beginning of this year, and Reform’s lowest since 2025. Reform had enjoyed an 18-month lead over the Tories with More in Common.
Worth reading in full.
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The only hope for the uk under your current odd way of governing is to merge conservatives and reform. Throw in restore for good measure. Get rid of Labour and socialism, they are killing the Uk.
Well what a surprise. Kemi and the Tories have had their reshuffle and it has been plastered all over the news. At the same time things have quietened down now Nigel has been re-elected and Ithink he has been off for a holiday.
It will all change tomorrow when the party conference starts.
The DS joins the Establishment. Join the cortege.
It’s inevitable that other MP’s will use their kangaroo court to find Farage guilty of every wrongdoing they can think of and probably suspend him from the Commons for as long as possible. Sadly it seems likely that some people who were thinking of voting Reform will be put off by thinking he’s a dishonest crook and decide to switch to the CONservatives or Restore. If Reform loose another 3 or 4 points in the polls, Liebour can get their electoral reform bill signed into law and all 16 and 17 year-olds registered by spring or summer next year a general election looks pretty likely. If there’s no tax rises in the budget and maybe even one or two headline grabbing give-aways an early election will be an almost dead cert.
Local elections show poor results for Conservatives.
It seems a remarkable coincidence that just as Andy Capp gets onto his hind legs at the dispatch box for the first time, Nigel Farage returns to Parliament, Kemi Badenough replaces her- evidently – B Team with her A Team… suddenly the Tories are polling ahead of Reform and gaining on Labour, advancing by six or more points over previous polls.
I smell a rat.
Not worth reading in full.
Anyone who considers the Tories after what they did in the past 14 years (record high taxes and immigration, huge defence cuts, Covid lockdowns and ££ profligacy, wokery on steroids, Net Zero madness, Brino etc etc) must be suffering from abusive partner syndrome. “Give ‘im another chance officer, he didn’t mean it”.
Not in a 100 years will the Lib Dem Tories get my vote again. They have sat back and watched (or encouraged) the collapse of this country. No values, no vision just a bunch of self serving parasites.
And wasn’t it Mrs May who signed up to UN Agenda 2030 and pretended to take the UK out of the EU? And hey, no one has polled me.
The polling company (More in Common) says it is non partisan and not political. They were founded in the wake of the Jo Cox murder to focus on their belief that we have more in common than the things that divide us.
They get a lot of income from funders whose names are not disclosed. These organisations declared donations
Robert Bosch Foundation
European Climate Foundation
Fondation du Crédit Mutuel
Open Society Foundations
William and Flora Hewlett Foundation
Stefan Batory Foundation
I bet what the leadership team and staff have in common is a strong dislike of Reform
Nice bit of sleuthing, Transmission!
Sounds like nudge to me. Ignore polls, ignore “expert” opinions, ignore trends.
Ignore what “some scientists say”
You will forgive me if I ignore polls taken immediately after a reshuffle, as they are not worth the paper they are written on. This is the Telegraph doing its best to decry Reform again.
Why is the DS running the exact same story twice in two days?
I suppose it’s of note, perhaps also a little bit of partisanship as our gracious host certainly used to be a member of the Conservative Party and probably still is. It would be good if he could write a column explaining why he thinks we should still support them, though it may be a little awkward as Badenoch made him a Lord (her best ever decision) and he may not want to be rude about her or them.
Ill never vote tory again no matter what bullsh@t anyone, including lords, tries to bouy them up with they can never be trusted again!
I think it would have to undergo an unprecedented transformation for me to be tempted – can’t see that happening
Making him a Lord was her ONLY good decision, and the Tories who voted for an Ethnic African of the Nigerian Yoruba Tribe to represent them as “leader” ought to be sectioned.