Reform UK is aiming to damage the Conservatives all across the country at the next election before picking up Commons seats at the election which follows it, party insiders say.
The right-wing party founded by Nigel Farage has reached a record high in the opinion polls, according to a BMG Research survey for i.
Tory ministers have urged voters not to back Reform, arguing that supporting them at the election makes it more likely that Labour will take power.
But sources from the insurgent party argue that voters just want to punish the Conservatives for not pursuing more right-wing policies.
An insider said: “It’s migration, net zero and just a broader ‘what’s the point of voting Tory?’, tax and all the rest of it. From our perspective, it’s all grist to the mill.
“It was always supposed to be the election after this where we fight effectively and with our tails up. The Tory collapse has almost come too early for us!”
Reform is often seen as performing best in the “Red Wall” areas of the North and Midlands which traditionally backed Labour but where voters heavily supported Brexit and which subsequently went Tory at the 2019 election.
But party strategists believe they can damage the Conservatives in multiple areas – one said: “Even in South-West Surrey (Jeremy Hunt’s seat), 15 to 20 per cent of the population are Red Wall voters. So I think we will have a voice almost everywhere, but nowhere will we have enough to win – as it stands.
“One of the things we are doing is using this as a talent-spotting exercise. We are more interested in finding good people rather than the most promising areas.”
The party is hoping to win over former Conservative MPs who leave Parliament at the next general election, as well as councillors who lose their seats at the local elections taking place in May.
But Culture Secretary Lucy Frazer has argued that voters who want to see migration cut should stick with the Tories, telling GB News: “Immigration and in particular illegal immigration is a top priority for the Government and not only have we committed to bringing it down, we actually have already made significant progress on that.
“We’ve seen that we brought illegal immigration down by a third in circumstances where other countries in the Mediterranean have seen their immigration go up by 70 or 80 per cent. So I would say to those voters who might be thinking about voting Reform, if you want to get illegal immigration down you need to vote for the Conservative party, because the only other alternative is a Labour government and they’ve got absolutely no plan to stop the boats.”
The latest BMG poll carried out last week found that 11 per cent of the public are planning to vote for Reform UK at the next election following weeks of internal Tory rows about both legal and illegal immigration.