Reform UK suffers polling DROP despite Tory defections as Nigel Farage turns attention to May elections

In the same week, former Tory Chancellor Nadhim Zahawi announced he had joined Mr Farage's party as another big swinger in British politics.

However, there are some regions where Reform is not seeing continued growth.

In Scotland, despite nine consecutive polls showing the party on the rise, Reform's backing has now actually declined.

This comes despite former Conservative peer Malcolm Offord being named as Reform's Scottish leader just last week.

The Norstat survey for The Sunday Times found that Reform now sits third in Scottish voting intention.

With just over 100 days until the Holyrood elections, the results may be alarming for Mr Farage.

The Scottish National Party retained its convincing lead, with 35 per cent planning to back their constituency vote, and 29 per cent regionally.

Scottish Labour sits second for constituency voting, overtaking Reform, after an increase of two percentage points in the last four months.

In the same period, Reform has seen a drastic drop of three-points.

Labour is also the runner-up in regional voting, despite dropping by one point itself, having previously been tied with Reform.

That is because Mr Farage's party have also dropped two points there to fall to just 16 per cent.

George Buchan of GB Insight said the Scottish elections will be a "more serious test for Reform’s appeal than what has gone so far."

"Whether Reform rise to the occasion or not is not necessarily a forecast for their future in UK wide politics," he said.

"Scottish politics diverges from UK trends. The 2017 general election saw Scottish Conservatives surge to 13 seats (from 1 in 2015), despite the SNP retaining their Holyrood majority - showing national results don't always predict devolved ones.

"Scotland leans left overall, and figures like Boris Johnson and Nigel Farage have historically underperformed here compared to 'One Nation' leaders like Ruth Davidson or Theresa May."

Meanwhile, James Crouch, Associate Director at Opinium, said that Reform "appears to have hit its ceiling across the UK."

"While in England, a lot of Reform's votes have come from the Conservatives, to get to the poll numbers they have done in Scotland required taking votes from some surprising different parties.

"While you’re seeing range of parties across the political spectrum in Scotland benefiting from a slight [downturn] in Reform vote share."

The poll also found the majority of supporters of all parties, other than the Conservatives, would back whoever was best placed to defeat Reform.

Sir John Curtice's seat projections show that on May 7, given the results of the poll, the SNP would win 59 seats.

Crucially, that stands at six short of the 65 John Swinney quotes as necessary to secure a new independence referendum.

And Mr Swinney gave a scathing assessment of the Reform leader, and a stark warning to Scottish voters.

"Nigel Farage has been a long-term opponent of the Scottish Parliament and devolution," he said.

"He holds the Scottish Parliament in total contempt, so his contesting of the elections is just about trying to undermine the institution.

"And if Nigel Farage becomes the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, I think the Scottish Parliament’s days are numbered."

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