Reform UK has retaken the lead in the polls following Nigel Farage’s return to Parliament, but a sizeable majority of Britons still believe the investigation into the party leader should continue.
New YouGov polling for Sky News puts Reform back ahead nationally, after Burnham’s arrival in Downing Street had helped Labour close the gap over recent weeks. Welcome news for Farage after his Clacton win. The same polling contains a much less comfortable number for him, though. Asked about the parliamentary investigation into Farage, 64% of Britons said it should continue, against just 20% who thought it shouldn’t. Even among Reform voters, opinion isn’t unanimous, 55% want it stopped, but 27% think it should carry on.
It leaves Farage in an odd position: his party’s back on top, but most of the country doesn’t seem to agree with him that the investigation hanging over its leader should be shut down.
Reform moves back ahead
Reform’s return to the top of voting-intention polling follows Farage’s comfortable Clacton win, sending him back to the Commons and giving the party fresh momentum after Labour’s “Burnham bounce” period. Burnham’s own personal numbers remain remarkably strong, separate YouGov polling this week found 46% of Britons view him favourably against 33% unfavourably, a net +13, the best YouGov’s recorded for a serving prime minister since Johnson in May 2020.
Farage’s own favourability tells a very different story, just 23% view him favourably against 67% unfavourable. Yet Reform continues competing at the top of voting-intention polls anyway. That gap between Farage’s personal popularity and his party’s electoral support has become one of the more genuinely interesting features of British politics right now, plenty of voters who dislike him personally still seem prepared to consider voting Reform.
Most Britons want the investigation to continue
Farage has been pushing to get the parliamentary investigation into him halted. This polling suggests he hasn’t persuaded most of the public. Almost two-thirds, 64%, told YouGov it should continue; only one in five said it should stop.
That matters because Farage and his allies have tried framing the investigation as politically motivated. If that argument had genuinely broken through beyond Reform’s core supporters, you’d expect public opinion to look considerably more divided. Instead it’s fairly lopsided. There’s obviously more sympathy for Farage among Reform’s own voters, though even there more than a quarter want the process to continue. None of this tells us what the investigation will actually conclude, or whether Farage has done anything wrong, public opinion doesn’t decide that. It does show calls to simply shut the process down haven’t convinced most voters.
Farage remains unpopular despite Reform’s strength
There’s another apparent contradiction here. Farage is one of the most recognisable politicians in Britain and’s just returned to Parliament with another convincing win. His party’s leading national voting intention again. Personally, though, he remains deeply unpopular with the wider electorate, YouGov’s latest tracker puts him at a net -44. For comparison, Burnham’s on +13, Badenoch on -16.
That doesn’t mean Reform can’t win an election, British voters choose parties and local candidates rather than directly electing a prime minister, and people don’t need to like a leader personally to vote for their party. But it does leave Reform with a potential problem if the next election increasingly turns into a presidential-style contest between Farage and Burnham specifically. Burnham’s currently viewed favourably by roughly twice as many Britons as Farage. Reform, meanwhile, is demonstrating a party can lead the polls even when its most famous figure is disliked by a clear majority of the country.
The Burnham bounce hasn’t killed Reform
Labour would be unwise to read Burnham’s personal popularity as proof Reform’s gone away. For a few weeks it looked like the change in Downing Street had genuinely reshaped the political landscape, Labour recovered sharply, Burnham’s ratings climbed, Reform’s previously commanding position got noticeably shakier. Farage’s Clacton win has now given Reform another lift.
The party’s spent much of the past two years feeding off dissatisfaction with both Labour and the Conservatives, particularly on immigration and public services. Those underlying frustrations haven’t disappeared just because Labour changed prime minister. Burnham may be considerably more popular than his predecessor, but Labour still has to turn that personal goodwill into durable support for the actual government.
Farage faces close to the reverse challenge. Reform’s capable of leading national polls while its leader carries deeply negative personal ratings and most Britons want the investigation into him to continue. Both men have something to celebrate here, and something to genuinely worry about. If the next election eventually comes down to a straight contest between Burnham’s Labour and Farage’s Reform, these numbers already give a fairly clear picture of where each side’s strengths and weaknesses actually sit.
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