The complacency of the new right

I’ve long been of the view that mid-term polling doesn’t really tell us anything useful. At best they serve as a yardstick, but with so much variation between the different polling companies, it’s no better than going with your best hunch. My hunch is that people think more seriously in the run up to an election, and they refine their choice on the basis of local dynamics - which is why Reform, with no ground game to speak of, underperformed in the 2024 general election.

On this, YouGov seems to agree.

One of Britain’s leading polling companies has denied claims by Nigel Farage that it is downplaying Reform’s popularity among voters.

YouGov, whose voting intention surveys are published in The Times, was accused by the Reform UK leader of using “bizarre adjustments” to “suppress the true figures” about his party’s support.

In a letter to the company, Farage said that across YouGov’s past ten polls, Reform was on average five points lower than surveys conducted by other companies.

His attack follows YouGov’s latest poll, which shows Farage’s party just four points ahead of the Conservatives, with the support of 23 per cent of voters. Other polls have Reform’s share of the vote as high as 30 per cent.

However, YouGov says that its approach to voting intention polling is more accurate because it is designed to pick up tactical voting. This approach correctly predicted Reform’s share of the vote at the last election.

Overall, most pollsters have found that Reform’s support has declined since its high point last autumn. YouGov changed its approach to its weekly voting intention polls during the last election campaign in 2024 in an attempt to pick up tactical voting that has become an increasing feature of UK elections in recent years.

Unlike other pollsters, YouGov now asks two questions of voters: how they would vote if a general election were held tomorrow and how they would vote in their own constituency.

It is the answer to the second question that drives the final polling number because the company believes that this represents a more accurate assessment of true voting intention, given the number of people who are known to vote tactically.

Data released by the company showing the results of five polls carried out between December and January reveal that Reform’s poll rating on YouGov is lower because the answer to these two questions is different.

This certainly tracks my own thinking. Regardless of how closely Reform or Restore might represent my views, I don’t see either party as a serious prospect for government, and when thinking about how I might vote locally, I’m hesitant to trade in an experienced politician for a novice with a head full of half-baked populist notions.

Add to that the fact that Reform still has an underdeveloped ground level infrastructure, and will face organised tactical voting, the smart money still suggests a Reform-Tory coalition if the right wins at all. I think it’s highly plausible that the polls have been over-egging Reform for quite some time.

This is further compounded by the existence of Restore Britain. While Restore is not likely to make a dent in the polls, it could seriously erode Reform’s activist base which will prevent it from turning a number of second places into wins.

We should also keep our minds open to the possibility that immigration might slide down the agenda considerably to be displaced by cost of living concerns. Things were already tough before the outbreak of war in the gulf, but this latest conflict exposes the fragility of our economy, and I wouldn’t be surprised if the latest rises in fuel costs are enough to push some households over the edge. It’s alarming how little £100 buys you in the supermarkets these days.

This could lead to a rise in left wing populism which further cements the rise of the Greens with their brand of economic illiteracy. Moreover, with all the key economic indicators going in the wrong direction, it is not assured that Labour will even make it as far as 2029. Should Labour collapse, perhaps even splitting, there is currently no party of the right in any shape to fight a general election. While the right is having arcane debate about who is really English, voters will be more interested in how they’re going to make ends meet. Even if the new YouGov methodology is wrong, Reform should be more worried than they are.