Reform UK’s remarkable post-general election surge is upending British politics to the extent that “anything is possible” for leader Nigel Farage, including becoming Prime Minister in 2029, a pollster has said.

Reform made a significant impact in the 2024 general election, with candidates capitalising on the Conservative Party’s steep decline by winning five seats. Mr Farage himself was elected to Parliament for the first time, in Clacton.

However, author and political commentator Matthew Goodwin, who was until July professor of politics at the University of Kent, said so unpredictable was the UK politically, it was quite plausible to suggest Reform was on the brink of a decisive breakthrough.

He highlighted the trend yesterday by sharing the results of a Find Out Now poll putting Reform on 25% – one ahead of the Tories and just one behind Labour. In response, Mr Farage himself observed: “The trend is clear.”

Prof Goodwin told the Daily Express: “What the polling since the general election has shown, including the most recent bombshell poll, is that support for the Reform Party on average, is up about 10 points since the general election.

“Were the latest numbers replicated that election Reform would win somewhere around 100 seats in the House of Commons.”

This was just the tip of the iceberg, Prof Goodwin stressed, explaining: “If you look into the detail of the recent polling, I think what it also shows is that Reform is now more popular than the Tories among everybody under the age of 65.

“They’re more popular among men, and they are very popular among traditional non-voters, people who typically didn’t vote at the 2024 general election. Their vote is overwhelmingly driven by concerns over mass uncontrolled immigration and how it’s changing the country, and they feel very fed-up with the direction of Britain.

“If you look at the polling that we’ve got this week, you’ve got the three parties kind of clustered in the mid-20s, Labour, the Conservatives and Reform, with the Lib Dems, in a distant fourth place.

“What you’re basically seeing is a two-party system being pushed into becoming a multi-party system, such is the strength of concern over migration and how it’s changing the country.”

With specific reference to the man who has been the face of euroscepticism for a quarter of a century, Prof Goodwin continued: “I would say the polling shows quite clearly that Nigel Farage is on the cusp of delivering a historic change, a historic realignment of the political system with with Reform now achieving numbers that would have been unthinkable in the UKIP/Brexit party era.

Nevertheless, Prof Goodwin stressed that Reform’s transformation from a fringe outfit to a one capable of winning a general election would not be straightforward.

He explained: “They’re up against it. So far, they’ve never before really mobilised a national campaign that can win dozens, if not more than 100 seats.

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“But the key point with the first-past-the-post system is, once you reach that tipping point where you basically start to replace one of the big parties, which, of course, is what the Labour Party did with overtaking the Liberals, once you reach somewhere around 25% to 30%, you basically then transform into a major political party with a formidable presence in the Commons.”

It was also crucial to take note of what Prof Goodwin called “record levels of volatility” when it came to public opinion.

He said: “We have millions of voters switching their political loyalty around, you’ve got about 60% of voters over the last decade switching their votes, going from Labour to the Conservatives, from the Conservatives to Reform, from Lib Dem to Labour.

“So with that churn in the system, then anything is possible. That’s basically how you went from a 2019 stonking Conservative majority to a stonking Labour majority in 24.

“It’s that volatility in the system now that means anything is possible for Farage and Reform in 2029.”