And with more than one in five currently saying they back the former UKIP leader, the findings raise the startling prospect of Mr Farage could be poised to change the face of British politics forever. The Opinium survey shows the Brexit Party just one point behind the Conservatives in a survey of voting intentions for the next General Election. Labour is out in front with 28 percent support, followed by the Tories on a dismal 22 percent, and the Brexit Party on 21 percent, just four months after its launch in January.
Adam Drummond, Opinium’s head of political polling, said it was possible the European election in less than two weeks could be “bleeding into” and “inflating” the Westminster results – but stressed the findings were nevertheless striking.
He added: “It would be reasonable to assume that this would fall back in an actual general election campaign, but the fact a party that is less than six months old is now vying with the governing party for second place is remarkable.
“The Tories’ reliance on Leave voters seemed sensible in the aftermath of the referendum.
“But raising expectations of the kind of deal the UK could get and using the phrase ‘no deal is better than a bad deal’ so relentlessly was always going to open the party up to this kind of challenge once those expectations could not be met.”
The two main parties, Labour and the Conservatives, continue to drop votes, with Labour falling five points and the Tories four in the last fortnight.
But the Brexit Party and the Liberal Democrats are reaping the rewards of public frustration and are both on the up, with the former rising five points and the latter four – taking the Lib Dems to fourth place with 11 points.
In terms of the European elections, the Brexit Party is galloping ahead into first place with 34 percent support – doubling the existing gap to 13 points.
Labour, coming second with 21 percent, has fallen seven points in the last fortnight and the Lib Dems are in third position with 12 percent, having risen five points.
The Tories have dropped another three points with just 11 percent support, with many activists fearing a virtual wipeout on May 23.
Once party insider told the Financial Times on Thursday: “There are some people in Conservative Party headquarters who think we’ll poll less than 10 percent.
“We could come in behind the Brexit Party, Labour, Liberal Democrats and even the Greens and Change UK.”
Mr Drummond said Remainers were split on which party to support and 57 percent would like to see a pro-Remain alliance.
He said: “On the European elections, while the question of which party Brexit voters should back was settled some time ago, the equivalent for Remain voters is still ambiguous.
“The picture is most stark when we split out Leave and Remain voters – while 63 percent of Leavers say they will vote for the Brexit Party in the European elections, the most popular party among Remainers (still Labour) only has 31 percent versus 22 percent for the Lib Dems and 14 percent for the Greens.
“Interestingly, Brexit voters have deserted the Tories to such an extent that the Conservatives actually have a higher share of the European vote among Remainers (12 percent) than among Leavers (11 percent).”
Opinium Research carried out an online survey of 2,004 UK adults over 18 years old between May 8 and 10 and results have been weighted.
