Is Nigel Farage’s Reform UK going to ‘take over’ the Tories? What Yahoo readers say

Yahoo UK's poll of the week lets you vote and indicate your strength of feeling on one of the week's hot topics. After 72 hours the poll closes and, each Friday, we'll publish and analyse the results, giving readers the chance to see how polarising a topic has become and if their view chimes with other Yahoo UK readers.

Nigel Farage is to make his first TV debate appearance as he continues in his goal for Reform UK to "take over" the Conservative Party.

Farage launched his general election campaign in Clacton-on-Sea, Essex, this week after announcing he would take over the leadership of Reform, telling a crowd of hundreds of people: “Send me to parliament to be a bloody nuisance.”

Farage had previously said he wouldn't stand as a candidate again but his u-turn is set to prove a thorn in the side for prime minister Rishi Sunak and his Conservative Party, whose vote could be dented significantly by Reform.

Earlier on Tuesday, Farage said his goal was to take over from the Conservatives rather than join them.

He told ITV's Good Morning Britain: “You can speculate as to what’ll happen in three or four years’ time, all I will tell you is if Reform succeed in the way that I think they can, then a chunk of the Conservative Party will join us – it’s the other way around.

“I don’t want to join the Conservative Party, I think the better thing to do would be to take it over.”

Yahoo News UK asked our readers how likely they thought it was that Farage's claims will come true. Here are the results:

Our poll from Monday at midday until midday Thursday asked: 'How likely is Farage's Reform UK to 'take over' the Conservatives?'

It received 11,371 votes and showed Yahoo readers are divided on whether they think Farage will achieve his goal.

Some 44% of voters said they thought it was 'very likely', while 46% said it was 'very unlikely'. One in ten (10%) said they weren't sure.

Yahoo News UK readers were also asked: 'Out of 10, how important is Nigel Farage to the election?'.

This poll received 6,919 votes with the most common vote being 10, indicating many readers think Farage is key to the election.

The average strength-of-feeling score on all the votes was 6.3.

Our original poll article can be found here.

A YouGov poll run following Farage's announcement that he is standing in the election suggested that people don't want to see him as an MP.

The poll asked: 'How much, if at all, do you want Nigel Farage to be elected to the House of Commons as an MP?'

According to the results, 46% of people answered 'not at all', compared to 16% who answered 'a great deal' and 11% who said 'a fair amount'. Some 12% of people's response was 'not very much', while 15% said they didn't know.

Read more of Yahoo UK's Poll of the Week articles