Well, that didn't take long at all. 

Fewer than ten days after Nigel Farage entered the race for MP as the leader of the Reform UK Party, Reform now leads the Tories for second place in polling in England. Farage, you have to admit, is a shockingly good politician. 

💥CROSSOVER BOOM💥

⁦@reformparty_uk⁩ overtakes Tories in poll for first timehttps://t.co/r0YP7isbAo

— Richard Tice 🇬🇧 (@TiceRichard) June 13, 2024

Reform is the successor to the Brexit Party which had been the United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP), and Farage has been the beating heart of each of them. So when Farage initially announced that he wouldn't stand for Parliament people were disappointed; when he reversed himself it electrified his supporters.

This time around, Reform declined, for obvious reasons, to team up with the Tories, who have been governing as a blander version of the Democrat Party for Great Britain. And it turns out that conservatives in England, at least, are looking for an actual conservative alternative to Labour. Scotland, which is currently run by the Scottish National Party, is not quite as enamored with Reform, but they certainly have lost confidence in the SNP, which is going to lose an enormous number of seats. 

🚨 BREAKING: Reform UK has overtaken the Conservative party in support for the first time. A YouGov poll commissioned by the Times reveals support for Nigel Farage's party stands at 19%, compared to 18% for the Tories and 37% for Labour. pic.twitter.com/1pqWvYw9eG

— GB News (@GBNEWS) June 13, 2024

Nigel Farage’s Reform party has overtaken the Conservatives in a poll for the first time in a symbolic moment that deals another blow to Rishi Sunak’s electoral hopes.

The YouGov survey for The Times found that support for Reform had increased by two points to 19 per cent while the Tories were unchanged on 18 per cent.

It is the first time any poll has shown Reform ahead of the Tories, a so-called crossover moment. It will particularly concern Tory strategists as it was carried out after the party released its manifesto on Tuesday. After the poll was released Farage declared: “We are now the real opposition to Labour.”

However, in somewhat better news for the Conservatives the poll also found that 80 per cent of those backing Reform said that a very large majority for Labour would be a “bad thing for the country”.

Current predictions for the election show that Labour is likely to perform extraordinarily well, while the Tories are likely to be nearly wiped out after more than a decade in the majority. 

Net migration should be zero. pic.twitter.com/ddFwGEzXWL

— Reform UK (@reformparty_uk) June 13, 2024

It's unclear how Reform's improved standing of the polls will translate into electoral success. Labour is up by 20 points or so, which will translate into winning the vast majority of the seats once the vote counting is done. Opposition to Labour is split multiple ways--don't forget that the Liberal Democrats are out there as well--which means Labour can win a very large number of seats with a plurality. 

That means Labour's 37% could translate to 60% or even more of the seats, which is a nightmare for anybody who isn't a fan of the party. 

NEW: Polling says only 38% of voters think the projected big Labour majority would be a good thing, and 80% of Reform voters think it would be a very bad thing.@tomhfh | State of the Nation pic.twitter.com/l04EGD0HyN

— GB News (@GBNEWS) June 13, 2024

There's no doubt that the Tories deserve to lose and lose big. They have been absolutely horrible and anything but conservative in recent years. The rise of Reform is mostly driven by controversy over immigration, both legal and illegal, and the Tories have been about as bad as Labour on the issue. 

The Conservative manifesto promised to reduce immigration in 2010, 2015, 2017 and 2019.

Since then, we have reached record numbers.

Why should anyone believe them now? #ITVDebate pic.twitter.com/XwWGOLh2In

— Nigel Farage (@Nigel_Farage) June 13, 2024

Unfortunately, the Tories deserving to lose isn't the same thing as Labour deserving to win. If you think that the "uniparty" in the United States is bad, you would absolutely hate how power is distributed in the UK. 

The impending victory of Labour in the UK is especially ironic given the relative rise of populists in the rest of Europe. In both cases, the driving force is largely the same: discontent with the Establishment. In Great Britain, the Establishment just happens to be a nominally conservative party. 

One thing, though, is clear: Nigel Farage is a force to be reckoned with. He speaks for millions of Britons who feel betrayed by their political class. And they are right to feel this way.