Rishi Sunak warns voting for Reform will hand ‘blank cheque’ to Labour

Rishi Sunak has insisted he is only “halfway through this election” and is “still fighting very hard for every vote” after Reform UK overtook the Tories for the first time in a national poll.

The prime minister, who is attending the G7 summit in Italy, warned that Labour would be handed a “blank cheque” in government were Reform to win more votes than the Conservatives in the UK general election on July 4.

A YouGov poll, conducted in the wake of Sunak unveiling the Tories’ manifesto on Tuesday and released on Thursday night, put Nigel Farage’s party up two points to 19 per cent, overtaking the Conservatives, who remained unchanged with 18 per cent. The poll also put Labour at 37 per cent.

Rightwing Tories who are critical of Sunak’s approach and accuse him of failing to offer “red meat” to the party’s voter base had been warning about an imminent “crossover” moment in the days leading up to the survey. Their concerns include that Sunak’s decision to leave D-Day commemorations early would drive some traditional voters towards Reform.

Sunak told reporters on Friday: “If that poll was replicated on July 4, it would be handing Labour a blank cheque to tax everyone, tax their home, their pension, their car, their family, and I’ll be fighting very hard to make sure that doesn’t happen.”

Saying he spoke to many voters while campaigning across the UK, he insisted that people “do understand that a vote for anyone who’s not a Conservative candidate is just a vote to put Keir Starmer in No 10”.

YouGov puts Reform on a significantly more popular footing than many other pollsters. The Financial Times’ poll tracker calculates that the Conservatives remain an average of eight points ahead of Reform.

Appearing in an ITV election event on Thursday night just after the poll was released, Farage declared: “Just before we came on air, we overtook the Conservatives in national opinion polls. We are now the opposition to Labour.”

Later on social media platform X, he inverted the Tories’ argument that a vote for Reform was a vote to make Starmer prime minister, saying: “A vote for the Conservatives is now a vote for Labour.”

On Friday morning, Farage posted a further taunting message to Sunak on X, featuring the Reform leader singing along to the Eminem lyrics “guess who’s back” in his car.

Playing down the significance of the opinion poll, Sunak argued that “the most important thing” in the campaign this week was the Conservatives and Labour publishing their respective manifestos.

“Now everyone has a very clear sense of what each of us would do,” he said, insisting the Tories were promising “bold actions” and “a massive difference on tax” from Starmer’s party.