Campaigning for the local elections has entered a frantic final 24 hours as a poll showed Reform on track to win most votes.
Politicians are out knocking on doors ahead of the contests in England, with the Tories and Labour trying to quell a surge by Nigel Farage’s party.
Some 23 local authorities, six mayoralties and the Commons seat of Runcorn & Helsby are up for grabs tomorrow.
Research by More in Common found that Reform ahead overall in the battlegrounds, with 26 per cent support. The Conservatives – defending many traditional heartlands last balloted at Boris Johnson’s peak in 2021 – were second on 25 per cent.
Labour had 18 per cent backing, the Lib Dems 17 per cent, and the Greens 8 per cent.
Meanwhile, the Runcorn by-election looks to be on a knife edge, with Keir Starmer trying to stop Reform from seizing it – although he has been mocked for failing to campaign there personally.
The premier will have one last chance to get his message across to the country at PMQs this lunchtime.
Kemi Badenoch’s party is braced to lose 500 councillors in a grim sign of the slump in Tory fortunes.
Meanwhile, experts have warned that Labour might not make any progress despite coming from a very low base – after suffering the worst poll plunge for any newly-elected government.
In a sign of Labour nerves, party chair Ellie Reeves has accused the Conservatives of ‘gifting’ Reform victory in Runcorn by not campaigning there.
A debate on Channel 4 News last night saw clashes between representatives from the five main parties.
Environment Secretary Steve Reed criticised Reform London Assembly member Alex Wilson over his history as a Tory party member and councillor.
‘He must believe in what the Conservatives believe, or he wouldn’t have been doing that,’ he said.
Shadow housing secretary Kevin Hollinrake urged voters to use their ballot to elect ‘good people’ rather than to express dissatisfaction.
‘I think we can bring forward the solutions and then we won’t need Reform to try and have that situation where people think ‘vote for none of the above’, which is effectively what you do when when you’re voting for Reform,’ he said.
‘When you’re casting your vote on Thursday, do not use that vote to protest.’
Mr Wilson insisted he was ‘not particularly typical of a lot of our candidates’ when challenged over his history as a Tory member for more than 20 years and his previous experience as a councillor.
‘Absolutely we have a choice, and we have a choice between a political class that has taken your vote for granted for far too long and new parties.’
Green co-leader Adrian Ramsay said ‘moving away from the two big parties is not about a protest vote’ and that his party offered a ‘hopeful vision’ for the future.
He appealed to voters not to back Reform, which he said was ‘only really about supporting the very richest in society’, but to support the Greens’ offering of ‘a safe environment’ and ‘tackling inequality’.
Liberal Democrat deputy leader Daisy Cooper said the UK’s institutions are not built for the country’s current political make-up, arguing that the first-past-the-post voting system is ‘broken’.
She said: ‘We have a lot of people who haven’t forgiven the Conservatives for the state they left the country in and they’re deeply disappointed with some of the decisions… that the Labour Government has taken, and people I think are crying out for change.’
Luke Tryl, executive director at More in Common, which has been surveying the public across areas where ballots will be held this week, told reporters that ‘disillusionment’ is a ‘primary driver’.
He said: ‘I don’t think I’m exaggerating to say that the groups that we did over the past week are some of the most disillusioned, disappointed, disaffected that we’ve run.
‘There was a real sense that people keep demanding change from politics and they’re not getting that change, and that they are as a result not just thinking things are bad, but starting to lose faith in the inability of the system to change things.’