Albert Ward is a Senior Research Fellow at More in Common.
Reform’s recent polling has led many to ask whether the party has already gone as far as it can.
The recent defections of Robert Jenrick and Andrew Rosindell have actually come at a moment when the party’s position is far weaker than its poll lead suggests. Indeed, it has even dipped in recent polls.
In More in Common’s latest poll, Reform is ahead on roughly 30 per cent, nearly 10 points clear of Labour. That is a serious level of support for a party that is still young. But mid-term polls tend to reward parties that serve as vehicles for dissatisfaction. Staying there, month after month, all the way to a general election, will be far harder than getting there, let alone making further gains.
Why is this? Firstly, there is a limited pool of voters left for Reform to win. Beyond those who already vote for the party, only around one in five say they would even consider doing so. That does not mean Reform cannot grow, but it does suggest that the party is already drawing from a fairly defined constituency.
Most importantly, the group Reform needs to win over next does not look like its core constituency. The voters who say they might be open to Reform tend to be more moderate in their instincts and, on some issues, closer to the centre (or centre-right) of public opinion. For instance, while 52 per cent of Reform’s 2024 voters oppose Britain’s net zero target, only 39 per cent of their new supporters are opposed to it.
And Reform’s voters are not as lost to the Conservatives as you might think. Only 29 per cent of Reform supporters rule out voting Conservative in future, compared with 75 per cent who rule out voting Labour. Among those who have switched from the Conservatives to Reform since the 2024 election, only eight per cent say they would rule out voting Conservative again. These voters could well drift back to the Conservatives.
Perhaps most worryingly for the party, Reform’s headline vote share masks much weaker scores on trust and governing credibility. In the group of voters who might consider voting Reform but do not currently do so, the most common reason for hesitation is the party’s lack of government experience, with over a third saying so. The second most common reason is Nigel Farage’s association with Donald Trump, a deeply unpopular figure in Britain, even among new Reform supporters, where he has a -13 per cent approval rating.
One Conservative supporter put it bluntly to us in a focus group: ‘They don’t have experience, and I think you can see that. All the silly infighting; they’ve just made themselves look fools.’ A Reform supporter suggested the party needed time to prove itself: ‘I’d be concerned if we had a general election tomorrow. I don’t think they’re ready.’
Reform may also have trouble in presenting its policies. When presented without context, they are popular among their supporters. But when these supporters are prompted with common criticisms, their enthusiasm drops off a cliff. Take, for instance, Reform’s flagship ‘Britannia Card’ policy: When we asked voters who currently back the party about it, 75 per cent were in favour. When they were then given a standard criticism (that it would be a tax cut for foreign billionaires and that the sums don’t add up, according to Rachel Reeves), support fell to 46 per cent. It also reduced support among those considering Reform by 19 points.
The challenge is particularly acute because Reform’s supporters are divided on what they want. In our focus groups, some see the party as a necessary disruptor. One potential supporter compared Reform to budget supermarkets: ‘Well, I look at Reform a bit like Aldi and Lidl really. Because they get Sainsbury’s and Tesco to lower all their prices… Reform brings up subjects when no one else will talk about it.’ But others want not just pressure on the system, but a transformation of it. ‘I think we’ll probably have to follow somebody like Trump to smash the whole lot up and start again’, said one supporter.
While it may breeze through the coming local elections in May, as we get closer to a general election, Reform will be judged more harshly. If it has a strong answer to its biggest vulnerabilities, it will find it easier to keep its newer supporters. If it cannot, then holding a high polling position for the rest of this parliament will be difficult, and expanding beyond it will be harder still.
A fair objection is that Reform does not need many more voters to win power under first-past-the-post. If its vote is efficiently distributed, a party can win a majority on a relatively low national share of the vote, particularly given how fragmented politics has now become. Our latest MRP model finds Reform winning a majority on just 31 per cent of the vote. But that cuts both ways. Reform would only have to cede a few percentage points of support to Labour or the Conservatives for that logic to flip.
Reform is unlikely to fade away, but its continued dominance in the polls is not inevitable.
The party has already absorbed much of the support that comes easily to it. From here, the task is different: persuading voters to stay, winning over the remaining considerers who are wary of competence and judgement and Nigel Farage, and doing all of that for a long time under growing scrutiny.
That will be hard.
Albert Ward is a Senior Research Fellow at More in Common.
Reform’s recent polling has led many to ask whether the party has already gone as far as it can.
The recent defections of Robert Jenrick and Andrew Rosindell have actually come at a moment when the party’s position is far weaker than its poll lead suggests. Indeed, it has even dipped in recent polls.
In More in Common’s latest poll, Reform is ahead on roughly 30 per cent, nearly 10 points clear of Labour. That is a serious level of support for a party that is still young. But mid-term polls tend to reward parties that serve as vehicles for dissatisfaction. Staying there, month after month, all the way to a general election, will be far harder than getting there, let alone making further gains.
Why is this? Firstly, there is a limited pool of voters left for Reform to win. Beyond those who already vote for the party, only around one in five say they would even consider doing so. That does not mean Reform cannot grow, but it does suggest that the party is already drawing from a fairly defined constituency.
Most importantly, the group Reform needs to win over next does not look like its core constituency. The voters who say they might be open to Reform tend to be more moderate in their instincts and, on some issues, closer to the centre (or centre-right) of public opinion. For instance, while 52 per cent of Reform’s 2024 voters oppose Britain’s net zero target, only 39 per cent of their new supporters are opposed to it.
And Reform’s voters are not as lost to the Conservatives as you might think. Only 29 per cent of Reform supporters rule out voting Conservative in future, compared with 75 per cent who rule out voting Labour. Among those who have switched from the Conservatives to Reform since the 2024 election, only eight per cent say they would rule out voting Conservative again. These voters could well drift back to the Conservatives.
Perhaps most worryingly for the party, Reform’s headline vote share masks much weaker scores on trust and governing credibility. In the group of voters who might consider voting Reform but do not currently do so, the most common reason for hesitation is the party’s lack of government experience, with over a third saying so. The second most common reason is Nigel Farage’s association with Donald Trump, a deeply unpopular figure in Britain, even among new Reform supporters, where he has a -13 per cent approval rating.
One Conservative supporter put it bluntly to us in a focus group: ‘They don’t have experience, and I think you can see that. All the silly infighting; they’ve just made themselves look fools.’ A Reform supporter suggested the party needed time to prove itself: ‘I’d be concerned if we had a general election tomorrow. I don’t think they’re ready.’
Reform may also have trouble in presenting its policies. When presented without context, they are popular among their supporters. But when these supporters are prompted with common criticisms, their enthusiasm drops off a cliff. Take, for instance, Reform’s flagship ‘Britannia Card’ policy: When we asked voters who currently back the party about it, 75 per cent were in favour. When they were then given a standard criticism (that it would be a tax cut for foreign billionaires and that the sums don’t add up, according to Rachel Reeves), support fell to 46 per cent. It also reduced support among those considering Reform by 19 points.
The challenge is particularly acute because Reform’s supporters are divided on what they want. In our focus groups, some see the party as a necessary disruptor. One potential supporter compared Reform to budget supermarkets: ‘Well, I look at Reform a bit like Aldi and Lidl really. Because they get Sainsbury’s and Tesco to lower all their prices… Reform brings up subjects when no one else will talk about it.’ But others want not just pressure on the system, but a transformation of it. ‘I think we’ll probably have to follow somebody like Trump to smash the whole lot up and start again’, said one supporter.
While it may breeze through the coming local elections in May, as we get closer to a general election, Reform will be judged more harshly. If it has a strong answer to its biggest vulnerabilities, it will find it easier to keep its newer supporters. If it cannot, then holding a high polling position for the rest of this parliament will be difficult, and expanding beyond it will be harder still.
A fair objection is that Reform does not need many more voters to win power under first-past-the-post. If its vote is efficiently distributed, a party can win a majority on a relatively low national share of the vote, particularly given how fragmented politics has now become. Our latest MRP model finds Reform winning a majority on just 31 per cent of the vote. But that cuts both ways. Reform would only have to cede a few percentage points of support to Labour or the Conservatives for that logic to flip.
Reform is unlikely to fade away, but its continued dominance in the polls is not inevitable.
The party has already absorbed much of the support that comes easily to it. From here, the task is different: persuading voters to stay, winning over the remaining considerers who are wary of competence and judgement and Nigel Farage, and doing all of that for a long time under growing scrutiny.
That will be hard.