Brexit Party Rises in the Polls, as Leave Supporters Back Election Pact

LONDON, ENGLAND - AUGUST 27: Leader of the Brexit Party, Nigel Farage speaks onstage on Au
Leon Neal/Getty Images
Victoria Friedman

The Brexit Party has seen a rise in the polls, as a separate study found that Nigel Farage was influential enough to persuade three in ten Labour Leavers to vote for a Tory Brexiteer.

A ComRes poll has found that the point spread between the four largest parties is narrowing, with the Conservatives and Labour jointly on 27 per cent, the pro-EU Liberal Democrats on 20 per cent, and the Brexit Party on 17 per cent, having gained four points since the last survey.

With the Brexit Party again rising in the polls in the wake of the Conservative government losing a Supreme Court case on proroguing parliament and Labour turning its back on its Brexit supporters, a separate poll found that more Leave voters are looking to Nigel Farage for guidance on voting.

Data from ComRes commissioned by Britain Elects suggested that Brexiteers may employ tactical voting at the next General Election, with 43 per cent of those polled saying they were more likely to vote for a Leave-supporting Conservative candidate if Nigel Farage endorsed them compared to just 11 per cent who said they would be less likely.

Notably, nearly one-third, 28 per cent, of Labour Leavers would be “more likely” to vote for a Leaver Tory in their constituency if Nigel Farage endorsed them.

A majority, 60 per cent, of Leave voters also said they would “vote for the party in favour of Brexit that had the best chance of winning” if the party they traditionally vote for did not have a chance of winning in their constituency.

On the issue of a non-aggression pact, where the Conservatives and Brexit Party would agree to the tactical standing of candidates so as not to split the Leave-supporting vote, 57 per cent of 2016 Leave voters agree a pact is the best chance for Brexit to happen, with 63 per cent of Tory voters and 79 per cent Brexit Party supporters agreeing.

Founder of Britain Elects, Ben Walker, said: “The data we have commissioned offers further evidence to the fact British politics is experiencing a realignment where a number of Labour Leave voters are considering voting Conservative in order to see a Brexit supporting candidate win.

“What the data also shows is that Nigel Farage, once the stepping stone for sending former Labour voters gone UKIP over to the Conservatives, has sizeable influence in pushing Leave voters in a certain direction.

“This, and the willingness for a pact from both current Conservative and Brexit Party voters is significant insofar as it suggests the Leave vote could be less likely to fragment between the two parties in a constituency than we previously thought.”

Mr Farage’s frequent calls for an election pact have been rejected, however, with a spokesman for Boris Johnson’s team saying he was not a “fit and proper” person to be allowed near government, the prime minister later promising he would not sign a pact with the Brexit Party.

Farage wrote on Tuesday night that Johnson had made a “huge mistake” in turning down the pact, saying such a deal he “was a logical and winning formula which would have guaranteed killing two birds with one stone: delivering a clean break Brexit; and smashing the undemocratic Lib Dems and increasingly dangerous Labour Party. Yet he has turned up his nose at this opportunity. I think he has made a huge mistake.”

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