Reform UK are on course to make major gains at next month’s local elections – including in Labour’s Red Wall heartlands, according to a new poll.
The right-wing party will also scoop hundreds of seats at the expense of the Tories, the Survation research suggests.
Around 1,600 council seats are up for grabs in town halls across England on May 1.
Among the local authorities going to the polls are those in Hull and east Yorkshire, North Tyneside, Doncaster and Cambridgeshire.
Nearly 1,000 of the council seats are currently held by the Tories, with Labour defending 301, the Lib Dems 230, the Greens 39 and Reform 9. The remaining 147 are held by independents.
According to the Survation poll of voters in those seats for The Sun, support for Reform currently stands at 29%, with the Tories on 24% and Labour on 20%.
If those numbers are repeated on election day, Nigel Farage’s party would likely end up with hundreds more councillors, with both the Tories and Labour set for major losses.
Survation chief executive Damian Lyons-Lowe said: “On May 1, elections will be held for councils in England that were last contested in 2021 — a cycle during which Reform UK did not stand candidates.
“Today’s polling indicates Reform’s presence this year is likely to cause huge disruption to the status quo across the Midlands and the North.”
Tory leader Kemi Badenoch has already admitted that her party is heading for a bad night.
Speaking at the Conservative campaign launch last month, she said: “It will be the first time since the general election – the greatest defeat in our party’s history – that we fight these seats.
“If you map that general election result of 2024 onto this coming May, then we don’t win the councils we won in 2021, we lose almost every single one.”
She said her party would probably “do a bit better than that”, but stressed the elections “will be extremely difficult”.
Meanwhile, Labour have stepped up their attacks on Farage in recent weeks as they desperately try to stop their voters switching to Reform.
In particular, they have accused him of planning to make patients pay for their NHS treatment, and highlighted his support for Donald Trump and past comments about Vladimir Putin.
A Reform UK spokesman said: “We are living through a period of economic and social decline. Our great country is heading in the wrong direction.
“Labour have broken promise after promise since entering office and voters rightly feel betrayed.
“Reform UK will fix broken Britain, starting on May 1st.”
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