Support collapsing for Nigel Farage and Reform as Tories close gap, More in Common poll shows
There appears to be a significant decline in the popularity of Reform UK; A new poll shows support falling five points.
The More in Common poll, published on Wednesday, shows Nigel Farage’s party with 25 per cent of the vote. The Conservatives are closing in on Reform and are up three points to 22 per cent.
The eight-point swing left Mr Farage’s party with its lowest share of the More in Common poll since April last year and comes as Reform hopes to win as many as 1,500 seats on the council in local elections in May.
Some Reform insiders have privately expressed concern about the influence of Rupert Lowe’s new right-wing party, Restore Britain, which is measured at 4 per cent in other polls.
Mr Lowe, MP for Great Yarmouth, who quit Reform last year after a huge row with then president Zia Yusuf and Mr Farage, said: Independent: “We are causing them a lot of trouble. People are getting bored of it. [Farage].”
The findings also raise questions about how valuable Mr Farage still is to his party. This is his worst personal result since last year’s election, although his -20 per cent net approval rating among voters is still well above Sir Keir Starmer’s -43 per cent.
Kemi Badenoch received his lowest rating yet with -13 per cent, Liberal Democrat leader Sir Ed Davey -14 and Green leader Zack Polanski -19 per cent.
Luke Tryl, director of More in Common, stressed that “this is just a poll” but said the results “match some of the declines with some of our pollster friends”.
However, after two polls in a row in which Reform received 30 per cent of the vote, the highest of the main polling companies, More in Common appears to be heading towards the same findings as YouGov, which received 24 per cent, the lowest for Reform.
Pollsters including Sir John Curtice have noted that Reformation’s support has fallen since the start of 2026.
he said Independent: “More Commons tends to be higher for the Conservatives than most polls. They polled at 22 in March and February. But the Reform figure puts More Commons closer to other pollsters. They were still the only group to have it polling at 30.”
Mr Farage recently attacked YouGov, accusing the company of “deliberately manipulating” findings to make them look better for the Conservatives and worse for Reform.
Polling expert Lord Robert Hayward said: Independent: “This decline in support for reform is greater than I expected.”
A conservative source said Independent: “It’s just a poll, but we’re pretty sure we’ll have a poll in the coming months ahead of the Reformation, not just when. It’ll be a game changer when it happens.”
“Behind the scenes, Kemi is urging people to be patient because we are moving in the right direction and Reformation is definitely falling.”
But Reformation’s support remains strong in many parts of the UK; JL Partners MRP polling predicts it will become the second largest party in Wales, taking 29 of 96 seats in the local elections, with Plaid taking 33 seats. The result would be a disaster for Labor, which falls to third place with just 17 seats and loses control of Wales for the first time.
Meanwhile, Labor sources also received a boost from the poll results, which put them ahead of the Greens by 21 to 13 per cent after YouGov put Mr Polanski’s party ahead.
A Labor source said: “I think the only safe assumption at the moment is that everything has to be gamed. It’s extremely fragmented.”
They added that the polls did not even identify a new electorate of 16-year-olds who could vote for the first time in the next general election, which they believed would help them.
