Is Keir Starmer finished? Elections guru reveals major plot twist as poll has Reform crushing ‘Red Wall’

Nigel Farage’s Reform UK party is gaining attention in new polls, but voting habits haven’t changed much since 2019. According to elections expert John Curtice, relying too much on anger and frustration politics might not work forever.

A new Survation poll shows Reform UK doing well in Labour’s traditional strongholds in the North and Midlands. Support for the party in these areas has grown from 18% in 2019 to 30%. This might look like a big win, but Curtice warns it’s not that simple.

Many working-class voters who left Labour in 2019 still haven’t gone back. But that doesn’t mean Reform has a huge new group of voters waiting to support them. Labour’s support in the Red Wall barely grew in the last election, and Reform might find it hard to expand much more there.

Curtice also points out that focusing too much on people’s anger and frustration will only take Reform so far. An Opinium poll showed that 37% of Reform’s current supporters back the party mainly because of its tough views on immigration and border control. Among those thinking about voting for Reform, 72% said immigration was their biggest concern—much more than any other issue.

So, immigration is Reform’s biggest selling point right now. But this could change if other parties come up with strong immigration plans of their own. For example, a January Ipsos poll showed that many Conservative voters are also unhappy about immigration. But when it comes to other concerns like the economy or the NHS, they tend to stick with their usual party.

This means if voters are more worried about issues like health care or the economy than immigration, they’ll likely stay with Labour or the Conservatives. Reform would then struggle to gain more support unless it builds stronger, clearer policies beyond immigration.

A YouGov poll supports this idea—it found that 38% of people thinking about voting Reform also said they might vote Conservative. This shows Reform needs more than just one big issue to truly compete with the main political parties.