CAMPAIGNERS have warned Labour to change course as the hard-right Reform party surged into a polling lead for the first time.

A YouGov survey put Reform narrowly ahead of both Labour and the Tories, in a breakthrough for Nigel Farage’s party.

Reform polled at 25 per cent, with Labour on 24 per cent and the Tories on 21 per cent. 

The Liberal Democrats remain steady on 14 per cent, with the Greens rising to 9 per cent.

A spokesperson for left Labour campaign group Momentum said: “Reform’s poll lead over Labour is a devastating indictment of the Labour right’s lack of vision for the country and refusal to combat the toxic ideas of the far right.

“The people who voted Labour deserve a real alternative to the austerity they are getting under Starmer. If not, the consequences could be dire.”

Translating the poll into parliamentary seats — a perilous exercise — would open up the possibility of a Reform-Tory coalition government, with Farage in the saddle.

Reform would win 220 seats, with Labour on 160, the Tories on 105 and the Liberal Democrats on 79.

While the next general election is a number of years hence and an outright victory for Reform stretches credulity, political volatility is generating a wider range of political possibilities.

Farage himself greeted the news with a familiar, crafted mix of migrant-baiting and radical rhetoric.

“The consensus we have had for years doesn’t work,” he said. 

“Ordinary folk are getting poorer, borders are open, excess migration is changing communities.”

He pledged “strong, patriotic leadership that actually cares about ordinary people, not just the big corporates.”

Both Sir Keir Starmer and Tory leader Kemi Badenoch are feeling the heat of Reform’s advance. 

Ms Badenoch, who has struggled to make an impression since assuming the leadership, is the more immediately vulnerable.

The YouGov poll put her personal ratings at minus 29, behind Farage on minus 27.  Both are ahead of the Prime Minister.

Tory frontbencher Richard Fuller put the best gloss he could on the figures.

He said: “We’ve got to learn lessons. That’s what Kemi Badenoch has said and it takes time for us to restore trust with the British public.”

Sir Keir, meanwhile, continues to struggle. This week’s crop of negative stories include that a planned clampdown on foreign political donations was abandoned at the behest of key donor Lord Alli, who gifted the premier much of his wardrobe. 

He also reportedly broke Covid rules by taking his voice coach with him to a press conference while he was Labour leader during the pandemic.