Tories trail Reform UK on a range of key indicators according to an exclusive new YouGov poll for Sky News that reveals Nigel Farage’s party now has the potential to reach as much of the electorate as the party run by Kemi Badenoch.
Detailed comparisons of voter opinion towards the Tories and Reform UK reveal that profound damage to the Tory brand is still evident, while the figures suggest that the new challenger party which has topped recent voting intention polls has the capacity to perform at least as well.
This brand testing is helpful so early in a parliament when distinctive policy programmes have not been set out by other parties.
Sky News deputy political editor Sam Coates takes a look at polling for the UK’s leading right-wing parties
Sky News and YouGov tested the Tories and Reform on a string of key positive and negative measurements.
Only 10% of voters currently see the Tories as strong, while 61% see them as weak.
Reform UK does much better on this measure, with 31% of voters calling Reform UK strong, and 27% weak. This means three times as many voters see Reform as strong as the Tories.
There is a similar gap over whether both parties have a sense of direction. Only 18% of voters say they think the Conservatives have a clear sense of purpose, 59% say that’s unclear.
However, the figures are different with Reform UK, and more positive, 49% say it has a clear sense of purpose, only 24% say they are unclear on what the party stands for.
That means voters are more than twice as likely to see Reform UK as having a clear direction when compared to the Tories.
The gap is smaller when it comes to trust, though Reform UK still does better than the Tories.
Only 11% say the Tories are trustworthy, 65% say they’re untrustworthy. Again the Reform figures are higher, although by less than others – 19% say they are trustworthy, 52% untrustworthy
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Back 10 years ago, when Nigel Farage led UKIP, some thought he or the party brand was potentially too toxic to lead or for him to become prime minister.
They believed there might be a ceiling on his support that was lower than the pool of potential Tory voters.
But how has that picture changed now he’s leading the new party Reform UK?
One way to measure this is to compare the proportion of the electorate who say they would never vote Tory – those who definitely rule it out – with the proportion that would never vote Reform UK.
Some 56% say they definitely would not vote Reform UK – leaving a potential pool of voters of 44%. But an almost identical figure say they would never vote Tory – 55% – meaning their potential pool of voters is 45%, within the margin of error.
This means there is no discernable lower ceiling on Reform UK than the Tories.
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Voters on the right look more likely to switch from Tory to Reform than the other way around.
Among people who voted Reform UK in the election, some 46% can rule out voting Tory.
However among Conservative voters in last year’s general election, that drops to 36%.
Some 24% of Tory voters last year “will” or “might” vote for Reform UK now, while 8% of Reform voters “will” or “might” vote Tory.