Nigel Farage has changed the course of the 2024 General Election campaign – but what do voters around Britain really think about the Reform UK leader?
The Brexit champion took over the party leadership earlier this month as he announced he was to stand as an MP for the constituency of Clacton. Since then Reform UK has closed the gap on the Conservatives in the opinion polls and are hoping to win a number of seats on July 4.
As part of the 5000 Voices project, which is reaching out to voters across the UK during the 2024 General Election campaign, we asked people in more than a dozen constituencies what they think of Nigel Farage.
Opinions about the Reform UK leader were sharply divided. His detractors described him as ‘dangerous’ and a ‘horrible, horrible person’. One woman said: “His mother should have had a word with him”.
However there was also support, with one voter saying Farage was ‘absolutely amazing’ and others saying he ‘speaks the truth’. Even opponents acknowledged that he is ‘effective at what he does’.
Views on Farage varied markedly in different parts of the country.
In Edinburgh, we could find very little in the way of support for Mr Farage. One man said: “He’s an awful person who manages to hide his awfulness behind this sort of cheeky personality. Quite similar to Boris Johnson but he’s far worse….. Quite dangerous”. Another Edinburgh voter said simply: “What a t***”.
And in Godalming, Surrey, the verdict of 29-year-old charity worker Meg Hardcastle was: “A lot of damage all wrapped up in one person.”
But in Bristol we found some voters have been won over, with one interviewee saying: “Brilliant. What you see is what he does. Absolutely amazing.”
In the Nottinghamshire constituency of Rushcliffe, there was also qualified backing with one woman telling us: “He’s got good points and bad points. He’s got some good ideas.”
And in Gosforth, another voter said: “He actually says what ordinary people think. Whether it’s what people want to hear or not, but you feel as though he is listening to something.” This view was echoed in St Helens where a young voter said that Farage “Speaks the truth, speaks what most people want to hear about. Especially about immigration and about taxes being so high and about the housing crisis.” But another voter in the Merseyside constituency said: “I think the man’s a pillock.”
See the verdict of voters around the country in our video above.
5000 Voices reporting team: Nicholas Malizia, Andrew Spence, Michal Grant, Adam Foster, Emma Butterworth, Mary Bradshaw, PJ Lynch, Oliver Castle.