Will Nigel Farage’s friendship with Donald Trump lose Reform UK votes?

Read time: 4 minutes

In brief:

• Recent polling shows consistent British support for Ukraine across political parties, with approximately 70% of Brits saying Ukraine's victory matters to the UK.
• A YouGov poll reveals strong cross-party consensus on Russia's responsibility for the war, with high agreement among Conservative (72%), Labour (70%), and Liberal Democrat (74%) voters that Russia is entirely responsible. 52% of Reform UK voters said Russia is responsible for the war.
• Luke Tryl of More In Common says Trump's recent pro-Putin statements may hurt Reform UK's expansion plans, as potential new voters express concerns about the party's association with Trump's unstable positions.

What’s the story?

“The polarisation on Ukraine that we've seen in the US most clearly, but also in lots of continental Europe, just doesn't exist here.”

That’s Luke Tryl’s, director of polling company More In Common, analysis on where Britain stands in relation to the events unfolding between the United States, the UK, Russia and Ukraine this week.

Donald Trump has gone against the western grain by cosying up to Russian leader Vladimir Putin, who started an illegal invasion of Ukraine three years ago, saying Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky is a “dictator” who is doing a “terrible job”.

But while Trump’s narrative may somewhat land in the US, Britain has remained consistent in its support for Ukraine.

“We've been tracking sentiment since the start of the war, and fairly consistently, about seven in 10 people say it matters to the UK that Ukraine wins,” Tryl says.

Support for the country is cross-party, something that in today’s polarised times is perhaps most impressive.

A recent YouGov poll shows that when asked who is responsible for the war in Ukraine, 61% of Brits answered that Russia is entirely responsible, with 16% saying Russia is mostly responsible.

The consensus crosses party lines: 72% of Conservatives, 70% of Labour voters, and 74% of Liberal Democrats blame Russia entirely, with Reform - lead by Nigel Farage, a friend and staunch supporter of Trump’s - at 52%.

“Reform voters are a little bit less likely to support Ukraine or to support Britain's involvement. But even then, they're still more likely than not to say that Britain should be stepping up. Britain should be doing its bit,” Tryl explains.

With Nigel Farage usually standing shoulder to shoulder with Trump’s every move, the question is whether Britain voters' support for Ukraine puts it at odds with Reform UK.

Will Donald Trump’s position on Ukraine impact support for Reform UK?

“What Trump has done over the past 72 hours can be very bad news for Reform,” Jon Sopel says.

In the last general election Reform UK received 15% of the vote - these are their core voters. Now, their goal, Tryl says, is to push that figure up to 25%.

But the group of people who will take the right-wing party to new heights, who fall into that extra 10%, are much more “moderate” than Reform’s existing voters - or as Lewis Goodall says, they’re “ordinary people, not weirdos”.

“They're much less online, much more likely to disapprove of Musk and Tommy Robinson,” Tryl points out.

“They're voting for Reform as the ‘none of the above’ party. They're saying: ‘We don't like the Tories, they had 14 years. We don't really like how Labour started. We may as well give Farage a try’.

“But that group is the most likely to be put off by what we're seeing.”

Tryl held a focus group on 19 February with precisely those voters - people who didn’t vote for Reform in July, but might consider voting for them now. He found that they were “scared” about how “unpredictable” Trump is.

“Whereas previously, they might have gone: ‘Nigel Farage is the British Trump, he's going to shake things up’, instead, they were going: ‘Oh, is Nigel Farage going to be a British Trump? Is he going to be stable?’

“So that credibility test that Reform is trying to pass, I think, is likely to be held back by what they're seeing from the US.”

What’s The News Agents’ take?

Britain’s unmoving sympathy and support for Ukraine could work to Labour’s favour as potential Reform voters back away from supporting a party so closely tied with Donald Trump’s - but why do Britain’s remain so supportive of Ukraine?

Jon thinks it’s because there’s never been anything more “black and white” than the “bullying nature” of Russia when 150,000 troops invaded Ukraine.

“I don't know whether it's the British sense of underdog, but the fact that Ukraine fought and fought, really effectively, Kiev hasn't fallen. I think this plays a part in it.”

But, Lewis points out, then Europeans would feel similarly.

“I think there must be something peculiarly British going on as well,” he says.

Lewis thinks it could be that there’s been a lot of British-centred stories where Russia has been the “clear villain,” he points to the stories of Alexander Litvinenko, the ‘Salisbury poisoning’ of Sergei Skripal, and even “London becoming a laundromat space for Russian money.”

But Tyrl thinks the answer for Britain’s unwavering and cross-party support is even simpler.

“I do think Boris Johnson is responsible for the fact that the right hasn't broken away, because he brought it in and said ‘this is a core conservative value’. So I think the fact that we have that cross party consensus has maintained that unity.”

While a rupture with Trump is obviously damaging for the UK government, Lewis thinks the situation Keir Starmer finds himself in now could provide an “opportunity” for him.

“He has the opportunity to drape himself in the flag, to become synonymous with patriotism and British identity, and say, ‘we're standing up to a bully’.

He can also say: ‘Look, Reform in the form of Farage, maybe they want to shake things up, but maybe they want to shake things to pieces. That’s a potential opportunity for him.”

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