Brexit Party Tops National Polls with Largest Lead to Date

Supporters of The Brexit Party hold placards as they wait for the start of the first publi
DANIEL LEAL-OLIVAS/AFP/Getty
Joe Markham

The Brexit Party has topped a national election opinion poll with a six-point lead over its nearest rivals in their most successful polling result to date.

Nigel Farage’s newly formed party, which is just eight weeks old, has seen itself top the polls for the second time, according to a new YouGov survey published in The Times.

If a General Election were to be held and the figures reproduced, the party would achieve over a quarter of the votes, 26 per cent. The Labour Party and Liberal Democrats would come joint second with 20 per cent each, and the Conservatives would fall into fourth place on just 18 per cent of the vote.

It is reported that 42 per cent of Conservative voters have switched to the Brexit Party, which also takes one in ten of Labour and Liberal Democrat voters.

The poll is the second to show the Brexit Party leading in national elections, with an Opinium Poll for The Observer newspaper carried out at the end of May also showing them on 26 per cent of the national vote.

A third poll, carried out by YouGov between the 28th and 29th of May, showed the Brexit Party in a close second place behind the Liberal Democrats. This was the first poll since the end of the Second World War which did not have Labour or the Conservatives in first or second place, suggesting a significant shift away from the major parties.

The new poll comes as the Brexit Party was narrowly beaten out in Thursday’s Peterborough by-election by the Labour Party. The eight-week-old party managed a strong second place position, just 683 votes behind Labour, which had previously held the seat.

Leader Nigel Farage said that “politics has fundamentally changed” after the results were announced, with two of the three establishment parties — the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats — being pushed into third and fourth place.

The strong showing in the Peterborough by-election comes after the Brexit Party comfortably won the European Parliament elections a fortnight ago, achieving nearly a third of the total percentage of votes (31.6 per cent) and winning 29 seats in the European Parliament.

In the elections, the Brexit Party topped the polls in every region in England apart from London, which was won by the Liberal Democrats, thus further suggesting that Nigel Farage’s talk of a fundamental shift in British politics away from the establishment parties is taking place.

Farage described the Peterborough result as “absolutely” of greater significance even than the European elections.

Mr Farage, speaking on the topic of a general election being called, said the party “are ready to fight a full-scale general election campaign”, with almost 3,000 candidates reportedly applying to stand in the event of a General Election being called.

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