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Reform UK has suffered another blow after new polling shows it has been narrowly overtaken by the Conservatives, leaving Nigel Farage’s party in third place.
Labour has topped the latest poll from More in Common, which gives Andy Burnham’s party a three point lead over Kemi Badenoch’s Tories, with 26 per cent of the vote share. Meanwhile, Reform has fallen one point behind the Conservatives, with 22 per cent of the vote.
The result marks Reform’s joint-lowest showing in 18 months, after months of scandal and allegations over breaking foreign funding rules took their toll with voters. Police have launched an investigation into the party’s finances after an undercover report broadcast on Channel 4 appeared to show senior Reform figures discussing how to disguise donations from foreign sources.
Reform has also lost its lead in voting intention polls since Mr Burnham took office and faced competition on the right from Rupert Lowe’s Restore Britain.
Mr Burnham takes nine consecutive weeks for Labour at the top of the poll into recess as parliament breaks for party conference season.
But while Labour narrowly lead the poll, the figures show Mr Burnham’s personal approval has fallen slightly to +10, although pollsters noted he still has a “comfortable” lead over Ms Badenoch, whose approval held at +1.
Both Mr Farage and Green leader Zack Polanski suffered poor personal polling, with the two neck-and-neck at -27.
The Liberal Democrats follow Reform UK in the poll with 11 per cent of the vote share, followed by the Greens at 8 per cent.
“Labour head into their conference with a lead in our polling for the ninth week in a row, although that lead remains narrow,” Luke Tryl, from More in Common said. “Reform has dipped to 22 per cent, their joint lowest in 18 months, Tories have stabilised a bit but remain at historic lows.”
He added Mr Burnham may be beginning to suffer from “partisan polarisation” after the number of respondents saying he has done a ‘very bad job’ has rose to a high of 17 per cent. But he noted this was “far below” the rates seen for Mr Polanski and Mr Farage.
It comes after Reform recorded its worst result in YouGov polling for two years earlier this week, putting them in joint second place with the Conservatives.
A separate YouGov poll published earlier this month gave more bad news for Mr Farage, showing that almost seven in ten Britons (69 per cent) say they have an unfavourable opinion of the Reform leader – the highest figure recorded by YouGov’s tracker for Mr Farage in the ten years it has run.
This includes nearly six in ten Britons (57 per cent) seeing Mr Farage very unfavourably, while just 24 per cent have a favourable opinion of the Reform UK leader.
Mr Farage now has a net favourability rating of -45, identical to Sir Keir Starmer’s score just before his resignation as prime minister. This is down from a rating of -31 this time last year, with Britons now nearly three times as likely to see him negatively than positively.
