Labour are attempting to take the fight to Reform UK, with Keir Starmer describing the rival party’s proposal to scrap indefinite leave to remain as “racist”, while home secretary Shabana Mahmood has branded Nigel Farage of “worse than racist” dog-whistle politics.
A new YouGov survey conducted for ITV Peston finds that more than four in ten Britons consider the Reform UK party (47%), policies (46%) and voters (43%) to be “generally racist”. This compares to 35-36% in each case who disagree, believing them to generally not be racist.
Unsurprisingly, Reform voters overwhelmingly reject (87-90%) those labels for the party, policies and voters. Most Conservative voters (55-60%) likewise consider Reform, its policies and its voters to generally not be racist.
Voters for left wing parties take the opposite view. Approximately seven in ten Labour and Lib Dem voters (67-53%) say the party and its policies are generally racist, while slightly fewer (59-65%) say the same of its voters.
Green voters are even more convinced of racism on Reform’s part, with eight in ten (82-84%) describing the party and its policies as generally racist, while two thirds (69%) say the same of its voters.
When it comes to what the public believe Keir Starmer thinks, six in ten Britons (60-61%) believe that the prime minister considers the party and its policies to generally be racist, while a lower 49% believe he thinks Reform voters to racist.
On this question, Conservative and Reform voters are either as likely or more likely than their more left-wing counterparts to think Keir Starmer considers each of these three entities are generally racist.
Keir Starmer himself has now said, after ITV Peston and subsequent broadcasters put this data to him, that he does not consider Reform UK voters to be racist, nor Nigel Farage.
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