Labour has pushed ahead of Reform in the polls after hard-Left voters flocked back to the party under Andy Burnham, new analysis reveals today.
The Mail’s poll-of-polls puts Labour on 25 per cent, a point ahead of Nigel Farage‘s party in the week he contests a by-election in his Clacton constituency amid questions over his and the party’s finances.
The leapfrogging appears to have been powered by voters ditching Zack Polanski‘s Green Party, which having threatened to challenge the main parties earlier this year has experienced a decline in popularity.
Kemi Badenoch‘s Tories are also slowly moving up in the polls but remain a distant third in our 14-day rolling average of polls.
Mr Burnham has pushed Labour to the left since replacing Sir Keir Starmer last month, setting out a policy platform that includes building thousands of new council houses and shifting power out of Westminster to the North.
Once he returns from a holiday he is to kick off a national tour this week to ask the public how the Government can improve their lives.
Officials said the Prime Minister would be in ‘listening mode’ as he spends much of the rest of August travelling the country to discuss the cost of living and improving high streets.
But Shadow Chancellor Sir Mel Stride accused Mr Burnham of ‘breathtaking hypocrisy’, arguing Labour tax hikes and ‘red tape’ were ‘hammering our high streets’, forcing businesses to close and driving up prices for consumers.
The Mail’s poll-of-polls puts Labour on 25 per cent, a point ahead of Nigel Farage’s party in the week he contests a by-election in his Clacton constituency
Voters in Clacton go to the polls on Thursday after Mr Farage stood down as an MP to trigger a by-election.
The Reform UK leader is standing for re-election and is one of 34 candidates on the 3ft-long ballot paper.
But none of the largest parties in Westminster – Labour, the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats – are in the running, having dismissed the poll as a stunt.
Mr Farage is being investigated by the parliamentary standards commissioner Daniel Greenberg over a £5million gift from cryptocurrency tycoon Christopher Harborne, which he received before taking his seat in the Commons.
The investigation, looking at whether he should have declared the money when he arrived in Parliament, was suspended on his resignation, but is likely to resume if he wins the by-election.
If he is found to have broken the rules and a suspension of more than ten days is imposed, it could trigger a recall petition and the prospect of Mr Farage losing his seat, forcing a second contest.
Mr Farage previously said he has ‘not broken the law in any way at all’ and warned the standards probe was ‘now being used as a political tool’.
Voters in Clacton go to the polls on Thursday after Mr Farage stood down as an MP to trigger a by-election
The Green decline has coincided with Mr Polanski admitting he failed to pay council tax while living on a boat in London.
After facing criticism that he does not speak about the environment much, Mr Polanski last night said the UK should be investing money in defending the country against the climate crisis rather than listening to Donald Trump on security spending.
The Green leader reiterated his view that the climate crisis is ‘the biggest threat to our national security since the Second World War’.
Appearing at Iain Dale All Talk at the Edinburgh Fringe, he was asked by an audience member whether he and his party agree with increasing defence spending to 3 per cent of GDP when there are ‘so many competing environmental needs’.
Mr Polanski said that if defence spending includes money for climate adaptation such as dealing with floods and wildfires then we ‘clearly need to up our spending’.
He suggested that was more important than listening to US President Donald Trump, who has called for Nato allies to shoulder more of the burden of European defence.
Mr Polanski said: ‘If we’re talking about spending 3.5 per cent of our GDP on military spending to please Donald Trump, then I think there’s an absolute incoherency in that.
‘We’re already, I think, one of the fifth biggest spenders on military capacity, and actually, I think we need to look at defence as a much more holistic issue.
‘I said this week, and I really believe, that the climate crisis is the biggest threat to our national security since the Second World War.
‘It’s not some distant threat – it’s right here, right now. We’ve had wildfires not far away from here, where we’re talking in Edinburgh, and we know that what’s happening right now is not the new normal.
‘This is the beginning of what will be the least extreme temperatures and least extreme weather in our lifetimes.
