Three weeks before the general election in Great Britain, the right-wing populist party Reform UK has overtaken Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s conservative Tories in a poll for the first time. In the poll published on Thursday evening by the YouGov institute on behalf of the newspaper “The Times”, Reform UK gained two percentage points to 19 percent, placing it in second place behind the Labour Party.
The Labour Party lost one percentage point, but is still clearly in the lead with 37 percent. The Tories are unchanged at 18 percent, putting them in third place for the first time. Although the gap between the Tories and Reform UK is small, YouGov is already talking about a political “earthquake”.
Sunak, whose party has been in power for 14 years, is under massive pressure ahead of the election. In polls, his Conservatives have been far behind the opposition Labour Party for months.
Reform UK is the new party of the former head of the Brexit party Ukip, Nigel Farage. With its tough anti-immigration stance, Reform UK could steal more votes from the Tories. Farage said in a debate on ITV on Thursday evening that he already sees his party as the “opposition to the Labour Party”.
