Nigel Farage may very well be blocked from Downing Street by huge Left-wing tactical voting drive, ballot finds
Nigel Farage could be blocked from Downing Street at the next general election by a tactical voting drive among Left-wing voters, new polling has suggested.
Research by YouGov found 57 per cent of Liberal Democrat voters would switch their support and back Labour if they were in a seat where Reform UK looked likely to win.
Almost half of Green voters (46 per cent) would do the same if Mr Farage’s party looked on course to win in their local constituency.
The polling, conducted for The Times, also found that Lib Dem, Green and Labour voters were even prepared to back the Tories in seats that were vulnerable to Reform.
A third (34 per cent) of current Labour voters would support the Conservatives to stop Reform, as would 39 per cent of Lib Dem voters and 19 per cent of Green voters.
Senior Reform figures have pointed to tactical voting for their party’s failure to win the the Caerphilly by-election last month.
Mr Farage’s party pledged to ‘throw everything’ at the contest for a Welsh Senedd seat but finished second behind Plaid Cymru, while Labour were third.
It has been suggested that Left-wing voters in the constituency flocked to Plaid, rather than Labour, as the better option to stop Reform winning.
Nigel Farage could be blocked from Downing Street at the next general election by a tactical voting drive among Left-wing voters, new polling has suggested
YouGov’s latest voting intention poll found Reform on 27 per cent support across Britain, with Labour on 20 per cent, the Tories and Greens on 16 per cent, and Lib Dems on 15 per cent
The YouGov research found that Labour and Lib Dem voters were the most likely to vote tactically, while Reform voters were the least likely to switch their support.
It also showed, in seats where Labour and Reform are battling it out for first place, there is only a two-point gap between the two parties when tactical voting is taken into consideration.
YouGov’s latest voting intention poll found Reform on 27 per cent support across Britain, with Labour on 20 per cent, the Tories and Greens on 16 per cent, and Lib Dems on 15 per cent.
Anthony Wells, head of European political and social research at YouGov, said: ‘What you have at the moment is essentially two blocks of voters on the Left and on the Right that are both prepared to support the party most likely to win in their seat.
‘This slightly disadvantages Reform because the Left-leaning bloc is marginally larger than the Right-leaning bloc and there are some Conservative supporters who would say they would back a Left-of-centre candidate to stop Reform.
‘Even at the last election tactical voting was off the scale and allowed Labour to win a huge majority with just 34 per cent of the vote.
‘Having five viable parties means it could be an even bigger factor this time around.’
