Nigel Farage is talking up pulling off a major victory in the Runcorn and Helsby by-election.
“Every time I go back I feel the gap with Labour is closing so I think we are in with a real chance,” said Reform UK’s leader who has visited the constituency three times.
Winning the previously safe Labour seat would be a “significant” breakthrough for Reform UK, says polling expert Sir John Curtice, as its predecessor Eurosceptic party UKIP failed to make such progress.
Sir Keir Starmer has conceded that the by-election on May 1 will be “tough” and in a sign that Labour fear losing it he has not visited the constituency.
“I’m just going for gold,” Mr Farage told Times Radio.
“We are going out to win and we have got a chance of doing it.”
Sir John, Professor of Politics at Strathcylde University, highlighted two MRP polls of Runcorn and Helsby, one showing Labour winning, the other Reform.
“It certainly suggests it could be close,” he said, explaining whether Reform could pick up “protest votes” could be key.
He added: “If Reform do manage to win the seat it will be significant because one of the things that UKIP never managed to do was to win a parliamentary by-election other than when a Tory MP stood down having defected to UKIP and then fought the subsequent by-election.”
The by-election follows the resignation of former MP Mike Amesbury, who won a clear majority for Labour in the 2024 general election, with 22,358 votes to Reform’s 7,662, but then received a 10-week suspended prison sentence after pleading guilty to punching a constituent last year.
At the same time, voters will go to the polls in 23 council areas across England and vote in six mayoral contests across devolved regions in elections that are forecast to see Reform make big gains at the expense of the Conservatives and possibly Labour.
A YouGov poll on Tuesday put Reform on 26%, Labour 23%, the Tories 20%, Liberal Democrats 15% and Greens 9%.
Sir John stressed what remained to be seen was whether Reform could convert large numbers of votes into actually winning council seats and mayoralties, and then delivering if it wins power.
The Tories will be defending more than 900 seats, and Labour around 280, once boundary changes are taken into account.
The last time these largely shire polls were held was four years ago when the Conservatives were enjoying a surge in popularity under Boris Johnson on the back of the Covid vaccine roll-out.
Sir John added: “Losses are inevitable (for the Tories)...do they end up losing more than half their seats...that would be a really bad mark...or do they manage to stem it to lower than that but that is the kind of scale that we are anticipating given that the Conservatives were at 42% in the opinion polls four years ago, they are about 22% now.”
Tory polling expert and peer Lord Hayward believes his party could lose around 500 seats.
Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch has braced her party for heavy losses but stressed that it needs to “fight for every single vote”.
Sir Keir said: “Most governments after a general election face a tough set of local elections.”
