Labour has sunk to its lowest approval rating for this parliament, according to a fresh YouGov poll for Sky News.
Sir Keir Starmer’s party is currently on 20% of the vote – the lowest level since last year’s general election and just three points ahead of the Conservatives. on 17% of the vote.
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Nigel Farage’s Reform UK, which on Tuesday outlined plans to deport hundreds of thousands of migrants if it wins power at the next election, is currently in the lead with 28% of the vote.
Asked about the polling, Nick Thomas-Symonds, the EU relations minister, told Sky News’ Anna Jones that the government had been forced to take “very difficult decisions to stabilise the public finances early in this parliament”.
He said Labour had acted in the “national interest” by securing a reset deal with the EU which lowers costs for supermarkets and shoppers, and which the government hopes to extend.
“That is acting in the national interest, that is not about particular opinion polls you are showing me today,” he said.
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“That is about work the prime minister asked me to do and to prepare for before this government came into office and that is what this government does. It does the hard yards of delivery for the British people.”
He added: “What Nigel Farage does is to stoke problems and offer empty promises for their solution.”
Mr Thomas-Symonds, who represents Torfaen, will take the fight to Mr Farage in a speech later today, where he will accuse the Reform UK leader of wanting to see Britain “fail”.
The government wants to get a permanent deal with the EU on food and drink agreed in the next 18 months.
The current temporary agreement, which was put in place in June, stopped checks on some fruit and vegetables imported from the EU, which meant no border checks or fees would be paid, and is due to expire in January 2027.
Mr Farage has previously called for the agreement between the UK and EU to be torn up, saying in May that the SPS [sanitary and phytosanitary] provisions agreed that month would push the UK “back into the orbit of Brussels, giving away vast amounts of our sovereignty for very little in return”.
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In his speech, Mr Thomas-Symonds is expected to say: “Nigel Farage’s manifesto at the next election will say in writing he wants to take Britain backwards, cutting at least £9 billion from the economy, bringing with it a risk to jobs and a risk of food prices going up.
“Mr Farage wants Britain to fail. His model of politics feeds on it, offering the easy answers, dividing communities and stoking anger.”
A Reform UK spokesperson said: “No one has done more damage to British businesses than this Labour government.
“With 157,000 fewer people on payroll since Labour took office, their jobs tax is stifling success and hitting small and medium-sized businesses across the country.
“Cosying up to the EU and leaving us entangled in reams of retained EU law which Kemi Badenoch failed to scrap will not resuscitate Britain’s struggling economy.”
