Nigel Farage viewed favourably by more people than other leaders – poll
More people are favourable to Nigel Farage than other political leaders – but the British public maintains a negative view of high-profile politicians and parties, a pollster has found.
A monthly survey by Ipsos shows the Reform UK leader and Kemi Badenoch are the only senior politicians to improve their favourability rating since January, with positivity about Sir Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves dwindling.
Mr Farage is perceived favourably by 31% of those surveyed but unfavourably by 46%, with a five-point boost since January taking his overall net rating to minus 15.
Meanwhile, the Conservative Party leader received a 0.5 point swing to boost her net favourability to minus 29 as 16% view her positively and 45% negatively.
Prime Minister
Sir Keir’s net favourability slipped by 3.5 points to minus 34, with 21% positive about the Prime Minister and 55% negative.
Ms Reeves is the only politician with a worse net score than the Prime Minister of minus 39, with a fall of three points this month leaving the Chancellor with 14% of the public viewing her positively and 53% negatively.
The remaining two UK politicians included in the survey, Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner and Liberal Democrats leader Sir Ed Davey, registered net favourability scores of minus 30 and minus 12 respectively. This leaves Sir Ed with the highest net rating.
Trump
The survey also tested Donald Trump’s favourability but was conducted between February 7-11, before his controversial comments on the conflict in Ukraine.
The US president recorded a net rating of minus 32, with 25% of Britons holding a favourable view and 57% unfavourable.
Keiran Pedley, director of UK Politics at Ipsos, said: “This polling shows the relatively competitive position Nigel Farage holds versus other party leaders.
“More Britons are favourable towards Farage than Starmer, Badenoch or Davey. However, these poll findings were taken before Donald Trump’s recent comments about Ukraine, so it remains to be seen whether these – and Nigel Farage’s response – impact the numbers moving forward.”
Political parties
A focus on perceptions of political parties showed the Green Party had the best favourbility score of minus 5, followed by the Lib Dems with minus 12 and Reform UK with minus 14.
However, Reform UK experienced the biggest positive swing since last month of 4%.
Labour is seen as favourable by 24% and unfavourable by 52%, a net score of minus 28.
The Conservatives received the lowest party rating of minus 34, with 19% favourable and 53% unfavourable.
But this was a 1.5 point improvement for the Tories on last month and compares to a 3.5 negative swing for Labour.
A significant majority of Britons continue to believe the country is heading in the wrong direction with 62% holding this view, a proportion unchanged since January. Only 15% said the country was heading in the right direction.
When asked to rate the Government’s performance on a scale of one to 10, the average score overall was 3.5, down from 3.7 last month.
The survey also found 47% of voters think the Government is doing a bad job at running the country, while 28% gave it a moderate score and just 18% gave it a high rating.
Those surveyed aged 18-34 overall scored the Government highest at 4.9, while those aged 55 and over scored the lowest at 2.7.
The monthly Ipsos Political Pulse survey interviewed a representative sample of 2,248 adults.
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Oopsies!
Support abusers, vote reform.
Wonder how this bunch are elevated above ability?
This the party that walked out on Lammy yesterday, when the statement on Ukraine 3rd anniversary was made?
Wonder when the money from a nazi saluting chum lands.
https://bylinetimes.com/2025/02/17/how-the-media-and-musk-are-boosting-nigel-farages-reform-uk-well-beyond-its-size/
Russia backed and financed. Listen to Carol Cadwallader’s expose podcast -Sergei and the Westminster spyring. It lays the last decade of UK political and societal shenanigans bare. Excellent ! And funnily enough we now know this week about Nathan Gill’s criminal antics
Is this the same Carol Cadwallader who spent years accusing Aaron Banks of Russian influence, then when her day in court came to show her evidence she literally presented nothing. That Carol Cadwallader?
Not quite the way you paint it.
But she is the canary down the coal mine.
That is disgusting…keep his gargoyle face front and center N.C…
I don’t know, there is something about this guy that I don’t trust. I cannot put my finger on it but……
Bit like that freak Milliband, he’s dead shifty too.
They are all shifty, taught to be when they apply for the job, all the secret squirrel stuff from professors of deception, diversion and disinformation…PPE+ same as the SAS “don’t tell em, Pike! course…
Starmer doing his self no favours by accepting Reynolds apologies for calling himself a solicitor, Starmer said ” you cannot be a law maker and a law breaker”.
Starmer as former head of CPS and a imminent barrister, knows that solicitor is a protected profession and it is a crime to represent yourself as a solicitor as Reynolds has admitted by the apology.
Actions like this will further the notion that Labour are losing their grip on Wales.
Nothing will ever be fixed by voting for Nigel Farage or voting the same way as him. You’d think given how much of a disaster Brexit was despite his insistence that it would be a roaring success would make people think twice about trusting him but sadly not.
Like other con artists he is very charismatic and always knows what to say to keep the con going, but little to no substance when you look close enough.
I wonder how long he’ll stay popular when his base realise he has nothing but utter contempt for them, their hopes, dreams, families and futures.
After all Brexit turned out well didn’t it?
It should be noted that this poll was conducted before Trump’s treasonous remarks. Even if Farage is more popular than Starmer or Badenoch he is more disliked than liked. My mother is a true blue ‘anti-woke’ Thatcherite Conservative and dislikes Keir Starmer, but she hates Farage, Putin and Trump even more. If she had to choose between Labour and Reform in an election she would hold her nose and vote Labour. That being said however Labour should not make the mistakes that the Democrats made in the US and rely on the ‘lesser of two evils’ sentiment.
No need to vote for any “evil” options when you can vote for Plaid Cymru instead.
In Senedd elections yes, because that is PR. But in a first past the post system and your in a constituency where Plaid cannot win, that’s different.
How can anybody vote for a political party that is OWNED by Nigel Farage? That’s right. Despite his airy promises to open the ownership , every penny in membership fees and contributions goes straight to the gurning Trump -apologist. Even when he finally builds some facade of passing on the ownership, the main one who wakes noney out of Reform – as always – will be Nigel. Remember, when Brexit Party members marched on London – and Farage CHARGED them for walking all the way – but he showed up only at the beginning and the end? And as for… Read more »
The ‘patriotic’ (traitoriotic) Union Flag waving Reform UK MPs were almost entirely absent (bar late arrival 30p Lee slapped down by the speaker for his disrespectful lack of punctuation) for the Prime Ministers’ speech on defence spending which was broadly well received by the house but not by the Nige freaks who clearly want to hand us all over to the new world order of the Don/Vlad carve up. Farage viewed favourably after this?
‘More people are favourable to Nigel Farage than other political leaders – but the British public maintains a negative view of high-profile politicians and parties …’
I can see why. Whatever you think of his political stances – and in my case, that’s not much! – he’s been by some way the most effective political communicator in the UK over most of this century, so far. Arguably maybe the most influential one, too.
Denying a politician’s skills and achievements because you can’t stand his politics just strikes me as a rather daft ‘head-in the-sand’ reaction.