This month’s poll marks the first occasion on which Nigel Farage’s favourability ratings are not within the margin of error of Keir Starmer’s
This month’s YouGov favourability ratings poll finds that a quarter of Britons (26%) have a favourable view of Keir Starmer (-2 from mid-January), while two thirds (66%) have an unfavourable view (+3). This is Starmer’s joint-highest “unfavourable” score to date, although his net rating of -40 is not quite the lowest.
Among those who voted for Labour in July last year, 56% say they have a favourable view of Starmer, while 39% are unhappy with the prime minister.
This month’s poll marks the first in which Nigel Farage’s favourability ratings are not within the margin of error for Keir Starmer’s. Currently three in ten Britons (30%) say they have a favourable view of Farage (+1 from last month), while the 60% with an unfavourable view is unchanged since January. Farage’s net score of -30 represents his best since he returned to the political frontlines at the election last year.
Farage is seen by some as the unofficial leader of the opposition in this parliament, and given the way things are for the official holder of that title, it’s not hard to see why. Our latest poll finds that Kemi Badenoch’s popularity continues to fall as the public become more familiar with her, with the number holding a negative view of the Tory leader increasing from 46% to 51%, while the number with a positive view has fallen from 22% to 17%.
With Badenoch struggling, some are touting the possible return of Boris Johnson to restore the party’s fortunes.
Our latest figures put Boris Johnson in a similar ballpark to Keir Starmer and Nigel Farage: 27% have a favourable view of the former PM, while 67% have an unfavourable opinion.
Reform UK’s leadership have been clear that the party will not work with Boris Johnson, with party chairman Zia Yusuf saying earlier this month that “there are absolutely no circumstances in which Reform would ever do a pact with Boris Johnson or the Conservative party”.
While many in Reform UK do like Johnson, he proves to be a divisive figure: 49% of Reform voters say they hold a favourable view of the former prime minister, while 46% hold an unfavourable view.
It would certainly be a challenge for Johnson to pry Reform voters away from the party, given Farage’s popularity among its voters: fully 91% of those who backed Reform in 2024 have a positive view.
Similarly, on the question of which would make the best prime minister, while Johnson wins among the whole population (29% vs 24%), this is because he manages to muster the anti-Farage vote in the absence of a left-wing candidate. When looking only at the pool of Conservative and Reform UK voters, Farage wins over 82% of his own party’s 2024 voters compared to Johnson taking 59% of 2024 Tories. Conservative voters are twice as likely to want Farage to be PM (19%) as Reform voters are to want Johnson to return (10%).
Foreign leaders
With Ukraine peace talks looking likely to begin soon, we have also checked in on the favourability of a selection of foreign leaders, namely Russian president Vladimir Putin, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy, and US president Donald Trump.
Vladimir Putin continues to be extremely unpopular in the UK, with 89% of Britons holding an unfavourable view of the Russian leader, including 83% who have a “very unfavourable” opinion. Only 4% of Britons have a positive view of Putin, although this rises to one in eight Reform UK voters (12%).
Donald Trump is also highly unpopular in Britain, with only 22% having a positive view of the US president and 73% a negative one. While very few Labour voters (8%) or Lib Dems (7%) have a favourable view of Trump, and still only a minority of 28% among Tories, he is very popular among Reform UK voters, with 66% holding the US president in positive esteem.
Volodymyr Zelenskyy, by contrast, is well regarded among the British public, with almost two thirds (64%) having a favourable view of the Ukrainian leader. Only 16% of Britons have an unfavourable view of Zelenskyy, but this again rises among Reform voters to 37%.
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Photo: Getty
