MAY’s local elections will be a test of whether Nigel Farage’s success with Reform UK is “built on hype”, a polling expert has warned.
Lord Hayward, who has been observing and commentating on local elections for more than two decades, said because the party is polling roughly the same as Labour and the Conservatives, they should win roughly as many seats in the local elections – with a target of around 450.
But the Tory peer and election expert said Reform had a “natural ceiling” because too many voters consider them “racist.”
“People have a view about Farage in the same way they do about Marmite or whatever it may happen to be. And at the moment there is a ceiling,” he said in a briefing for journalists this week.
He gave the example of a family member of his, who was a “natural reform voter” but “wouldn’t vote for them in a month of Sundays, because he has a Thai wife, and he regards the party as racist.”
He added: “If you look at the right-wing parties in Italy, Germany, France, etc, it has been a real challenge for the equivalent parties to break through.
“They can get to a certain point. What Marine Le Pen and Meloni have done is get beyond that – but it really is a massive challenge beyond a certain point.”
Lord Hayward said this would be the election where we learn whether Reform is “built on hype.”
“There is no reason come may, any more than any other party, why they shouldn’t be able to win the seats,” he said.
“If they don’t get the numbers of seats that backs up their position they’re going to have real difficulty justifying the ‘we are No1’ argument.”
He argued Reform’s recent performance in local by-elections had been similar to Ukip ’s surge in popularity under Nigel Farage in 2013 – which saw them come second in many seats, but fail to make significant gains.
“You cannot argue that if 3 parties are roughly the same, then we’re using a different judging criteria for one of the three parties,” he added.
Labour need just 150 gains to hit the same 450 seat target in May’s poll – while the Tories – who picked up huge numbers of seats in a “vaccine bounce” in 2021 – can lose 400 seats and still chalk it up as a good day.
“I think the bar for the Labour Party is incredibly easy to cross. I think it’s incredibly difficult for Reform,” Lord Hayward said.
“But if you say you’re in first position, then you ought to be winning seats, not finishing up 100, 200, 300 behind either Labour or the Conservatives or the Lib Dems.”
He said it was yet to be seen whether the very public row between Nigel Farage and Rupert Lowe had damaged voter confidence in Reform UK.
“Although this is dragging on with them knocking chunks out of each other, the party is actually Nigel Farage,” he said.
“And until Farage is damaged by the arguments, and at the moment he hasn’t been seriously, it’s not going to massively damage Reform.
“If at some point he is personally hit by it, then you know, he will have a problem.”
He added: “Opinion polls take…at least 10 days for any issue to impact an opinion poll.
“It’s almost as if people need to go home to the pub or to their relatives or their neighbours before their perception is converted into a change of attitude.”
Meanwhile, Lord Hayward said his own party were still in “incompetence” mode, and shouldn’t expect to make much headway in the polls for some time.
“Having developed a reputation for incompetence over six, seven, eight years, you don’t suddenly change it. And therefore I don’t expect the Conservatives for a year or two years to move markedly off the position they’re at,” he said.
He said Kemi Badenoch will likely face questions over her leadership after the results come in, but she shouldn’t.
“It’s a comment on the party. The Tory party is still in incompetence mode,” he said.
“It’s a comment on the party. People are not genuinely commenting on the leader unless they are Prime Minister or a populist.
“It will be taken as such, no doubt about it…but she has got a lot of headroom. She can lose a hell of a lot of seats and say in 2021 we won everything you can imagine.”
