Reform Overtakes Tories Among Over-55s
Reform U.K. has overtaken the Tories among over-55s, a new poll shows, as former Minister Nadine Dorries says the Conservative Party will “probably disappear” at the General Election. The Telegraph has more.
The Redfield and Wilton survey put Nigel Farage’s party on 19% of the vote among those in the 55-64 and 65-plus age brackets, up by a third on polling done last week before he became leader.
The poll of 2,000 adults put the Conservatives on 14% and 17% among the two respective age groups and is also the second in one day to show Reform within just two points of the Tories overall.
The survey, conducted on Wednesday and Thursday, put Mr. Farage’s party at 17% and the Tories on 19%, the same returns as a YouGov poll on Wednesday.
Reform is also now more popular than the Tories among all men, the poll found. 19% said they would vote Reform, compared to 18% for the Conservatives.
Nadine Dorries told the News Agents:
What we’re seeing right now is possibly the annihilation of the Conservative Party.
It’s probably going to disappear and, you know, certainly if Reform take over, given tactical voting which is taking place already in many constituencies and given the uprising in Reform’s votes and support since Nigel Farage decided he would stand as leader, I think you could see the disappearance of the Conservative Party.
George Osborne remarked that Rishi Sunak’s campaigning shows he fears for Tory heartlands:
If you look at where Rishi Sunak has actually been over the last couple of weeks, that is the clearest indication of where the Conservatives think the battleground is.
So first of all, he is hardly visiting any seats that are not held by the Conservatives, so he’s not even pretending there are going to be some Labour seats the Conservatives are going to be winning.
The former Chancellor added that the places Sunak has visited, including Harpenden in Hertfordshire and Macclesfield, Cheshire, “are traditionally safe, Conservative cities that I don’t think a Conservative leader would have visited in the general election in my lifetime”.
The polls are a bit all over the place, mind. A BMG Research poll for the i newspaper put Reform on 16% (up five from 11% last week), Labour’s down one on 42%, and the Conservatives down four on 23%. Survation meanwhile put Reform on 15% (up seven points from May 27th), Labour on 43% and the Conservatives on 23%. So who knows.
The over-50s-under-50s split in the latest survey is interesting though. On another topic that is often indicative of wider attitudes, a recent poll for UnHerd found that over-50s typically blame Hamas for the current Gaza war (43% of 55-64 year-olds blame Hamas versus just 22% of 45-54 year-olds) whereas under-50s are much more likely to blame Israel (fully 50% of 18-24 year-olds blame the Israeli Government). Why are under-50s so Left-wing – and is it age-related or generation-related? Discuss.
To join in with the discussion please make a donation to The Daily Sceptic.
Profanity and abuse will be removed and may lead to a permanent ban.
Go Nigel! Destroy the bstards
I wish for one thing : for the vote to be so fractured that the only thing the MPs will be able to do is argue with one another.
So they don’t have the energy or the time to meddle in the lives of the common folk.
Wishing for a white knight is a fool’s game.
But in the meantime, I hope that the small parties can cause as much political chaos as possible.
I still think it will be a hung Parliament and a low turnout. As you say, a fractured Parliament with no clear leader would be ideal.
But even with a majority a government has it’s hands tied behind its back on many issues because we have signed up to so many International agreements on asylum, immigration, energy policy etc etc.
The single thing that the Farage comeback serves is to rescue a faltering system. Before the Farage U-turn the people voting with their feet would be impossible to ignore, impossible to hide; the system was going to be questioned. Not now. Now the sceptical will vote. The people who said they’ll never vote will vote. Now the vote means something again. To all those people: well done. You exist to maintain a system that exists only to ensure your existence is one of servitude. Anyone that honesty believes that the system will allow an apparent Farage-type character to pull the levers of power really has not been paying attention. They need your vote to legitimise an illegitimate system.
What’s the alternative?
I am no great fan of Reform, Farage or Tice and I won’t be voting for them but they are probably better than the Tories who are less bad than Labour
I think Free Lemming’s point is that there isn’t really a least bad because regardless of who wins you’re getting the same thing. The winner doesn’t actually call any shots. He’ll either play ball or get crushed.
I’m with FL on this. What might lie beyond this corrupt system is a big unknown but I’ve seen enough to see where it’s headed and I know for sure I don’t want any part of the dystopia coming to us. And I agree that this only ends with mass non cooperation.
I’d rather take my chances with the uncertainty and the unknown.
I agree that mass non cooperation is an option, probably necessary when the situation gets dire as it did during “Covid”, but if you believe that democracy is the least worst way to appoint people to run the state then at some point you have to hope that at least some of those standing for office will be willing to stand up to outside undemocratic forces, as Trump tried to do.
We need a system which provides citizens with the right to call a referendum in a crisis or where an important issue needs to be decided
Possibly. I guess the Swiss like it. I tend to think that during “covid” the outrun would have been the same as what actually happened – let’s face it, “covid” happened pretty much everywhere regardless of political system – but on other matters it may lead to more accountability.
I get your point but you miss the Reform factor: if they come from nowhere and hold the balance in a hung Parliament then we have achieved exactly what you ask for. It would be totally impossible to ignore, Reform would call for a PR vote and suddenly all the small parties have a genuine chance. The two party system cannot survive much longer anyway but Reform can end in it now.
Proportional Representation can lead us to hidden horse trading, policies enacted that didn’t get a mention before the election, like Education in 2010, and party seats no better than safe seats.
To me, it is the lack of informed discussion in the Legacy Media, and the narrow Overton Window, that has encouraged such ineffective politics. How can we have the two main parties pushing NET Zero, contrary to the Laws of Physics? The answer is that the BBC decided the agenda, in 2006, two years before the 2008 Climate Change Act.
The alternative to voting for change is violence. Is that what you want?
Ballots or Bullets. TPTB are controlling elections everywhere – it’s there chosen method using their chosen arsenal – Big Tech.
A real sceptic will always be wary about opinion polls, but if the degree of support to the Reform Party is really that high, it is possible that the net effect may be that the ‘first past the post’ system becomes untenable, at last for Westminster general elections.
Then the other matter could be that large numbers of us might think that they have wasted their vote, and that the actual turnout declines – perhaps down to the rate of turnout that is typical for local elections.
In the meantime, you might be able to bet on some constituencies at the bookmakers.
The really interesting bit is when Reform start taking support from Labour too. In truth its too soon for Reform to make a fully credible opposition. But its still forming, its new and developing its message. As Farage says, they are looking at the GE 2029. It will be interesting to see what the traditional Tories like Braverman and David Frost do. Will they ‘cross the floor’..?
No doubt we’ll learn more during the Autumn Party conference season. They do not normally happen just a couple of months after a GE.
Are there any other states people think should not exist and if so, how strongly do they feel about those compared to Israel?
The “blame” question show that the respondents seem to distinguish between populations and their governments which may be recognition that the leaders, both Israeli and Hamas, do not represent their people. Hopefully they see the same separation in their own country.
There’s probably no other states that people think shouldn’t exist because so many people have just jumped on the latest virtue signalling bandwagon and this time last year the numbers in the survey would almost certainly been much lower.
Israel isn’t perfect and the situation is complex, but obviously they’re infinitely better than Hamas, apart from to a small number of antisemites some of whom comment here.
There’s much clear cases of illegal occupation or cultural genocide or ethnic cleansing that 99% of the virtue signallers never mention and may well never of heard of. China’s occupation of Tibet, Burma/Myanmar’s treatment of the Rohinga’s and Morocco’s occupation of Western Sahara are 3 that come to mind.
I cannot fathom why anyone who previously voted Tory would still vote for them given that Reform are proposing exactly the set of policies you’d expect from an actually conservative party
The only plausible reason would have been that Reform don’t stand a chance as they are a minor party but with these polling numbers that goes out of the window
Exactly. All those true conservatives still voting Conservative need to vote for Reform and in doing so will push Reform into the 30s. Then, hopefully, those voting Labour simply to make sure the Conservatives don’t win, will hopefully move their vote to Reform. It is down to the stubborn small ‘c’ Conservatives to wake up. If they do, this election could really come alive.
If Reform win are they promising a “proper Brexit”? Or has Farage accepted that that ship has sailed?
Their deputy leader, Ben Habib, certainly isn’t happy about the Brexit failure, especially the NI Windsor Agreement. I’m pretty certain if they were to win, Brexit would be done and completed properly.
I’ve got a better one for you. I cannot fathom why anyone would switch from Conservative to Labour, which is what presumably must be happening to sone degree.
It’s all the bad things the Conservatives did, but much worse.
Yup with you on that
Perhaps people who think the government will solve all their problems and just flip between the two when it doesn’t happen – let’s give them a try!
Madness
I hope NF will hammer home this point in the TV debate tonight that T & L have the same policies and that L voted for the policies they now stand against.
If you think there are only two parties, it’s the logical move. And they don’t like uncertainty.
And they will get that with Labour and the Conservatives: certain failure, Energy shortages, overcrowding, unavailability of doctors’ appointments, housing, and plenty of cultural diversity.
I voted Tory in 2019 for the first time, I’m old enough to of been able to vote in 7 elections. I feel completely betrayed but if Reform don’t have a candidate in Inverness I might not vote or I might vote Tory again just to send a message to the SNP.
I saw a poll a few days suggesting that the SNP could loose half of their seats, or even more. If this happens it’ll be at least 6 July before I stop laughing/celebrating.
You could always spoil your ballot paper
I think the Tory voters you refer to would maybe want to vote Reform but are scared to abandon doing something they have always done. I think though that many will wait to nearer the time and look at polls. If they see the Conservatives not nearly so far behind as current polls suggest they may stick with voting Conservative in the hope they will close the gap. On the other hand, if the polls indicate they are miles behind with no chance of victory, then they might switch to Reform as it would be pointless voting Tory.
Yes I guess that makes sense
I saw a story on MSN about Farage saying a lot of Muslims don’t hold British values. I read about 20 comments and 17 or 18 agreed with him. A lot of people are finally starting to understand what’s happening in this country but will this make enough of the consider switching to Reform?
Starmer wants to lower the age of voting to 16, well, one can see why: they are ikely to hate Jews as much as his party. How on earth anyone can believe that raping and murdering over a thousand innocent people did not cause the war is beyond me. Are these people safe to be let loose on the streets let alone vote?
The existence of Labour Friends of Israel, paid for trips to Israel for quite a few Labour MP’s, the condemnation of anything deemed anti-Israel and conflation of this with anti-Semitism: all suggest Labour is not a party that hates Jews.
If the next government is Labour, what can we anticipate the position on Israel to be?
‘Why are under 50s so Left-wing?’ re. Hamas asks WJ. I ask how do you give people political labels when the decent moral thing is to simply want the death and destruction to stop? I am over 50 and definitely not a ‘Leftie.’
The rise in support for Hamas (age 35-44) correlates with the generation which was, at least partially, “educated” under the Blair/Brown regime.
And the subsequent age groups, where support for murderous terrorists increases significantly, were completely “educated” by the left-wing, woke “teaching profession” Blair/Brown ensured were installed, including the expanded university sector.
Only 19% of people between the ages of 55-64 would vote Reform. I find this a surprise. ——-2 of the main issues facing the country that this age group should be worried about and also very aware of is absurd Net Zero policy and mass migration. —Reform are the only party stating they are opposed to Net Zero and we know their views on the absurdity of hundreds of thousands of migrants flooding here every year and the lack of infrastructure, housing etc there is for them, as well as the cultural change aspect where the traditional parties play the race card to stop us discussing it.
Unfortunately, although Reform is against Net Zero re fossil fuels etc, they use the ridiculous term ‘Net Zero’ for their immigration policy. Basically, it means ‘one out, one in’.
That is nowhere near good enough to reduce the damaging effects of the huge rise in immigration, legal & illegal, that we have seen under the last two deceitful Labour/Tory administrations.
Immigration should end for a period of 5 years at least while a repatriation programme is implemented for law-abiding volunteers and a deportation programme for foreign criminals, including those on the MI5 terror watchlist.
Here’s hoping Reform can formulate a more robust policy in the very near future.
Your coming away with specific things that you think are a good idea, and I could not disagree with most of that. Maybe it is not realistic though. All I can say is that at this moment in time I see the Political Class ignoring the people of this country and their policies pander to the UN and WEF rather than to us.
I am prepared to ditch these handwringers and give Reform an opportunity and at the very least if they do not win an election, they may shake the complacency out of these parasites.
yes we need a significant pause on legal and outright rejection of illegal immigration. We also need to get a grip on integration of inimical foreign cultures within our society, failing which, deportation
Sir Kneel has announced that if elected, the Labour Government would recognise Palestine.
What do you mean sectarian politics?
Joe Biden under-bussed Israel to win the Muslim vote in Michigan, so the sons of the Religion of Peace™️ know how to control Western foreign policy particularly towards Jews.
Shall we see segregation of Jews soon? The Labour Party has form when it comes to overt anti-semitism.
All that is, is seeking the Muslim vote. They are all it just now playing their little game of political poker.
We have been waiting a long time for this, we are not going to lose this opportunity. Cue the silent majority.
I will be up all night watching this one!