I think the narrative is “we convinced a bunch of Tories to cross over to us because the actual Tories shat the bed and we think their votes are more valuable/reliable than the twenty something left-leaning radicals who would rather complain about ideological purity than turn up to vote”.

I’d like to see some actual polling data for how many Labour voters are defecting directly to Reform.

That’s only because they cancelled the populist ‘left’. Bernie/Corbyn were the compromise.

Well he has to do something or Reform is guaranteed a win in 2029. Have you seen Labour’s polling? Reform has a 7% lead on Labour. It’s nuts. Immigration is now the most important issue for voters. Above literally everything else. 95% of the country wants immigration lower than it currently is. Prime Ministers can get away with being useless on a LOT of issues, but when 95% of the country agrees on something, giving them the middle finger is a one way ticket to being voted out with no confidence by the weekend. Do you know how hard it is to get 95% of the public to agree on something? I’ve never seen an issue with higher homogeneity on any issue in any democracy in my entire life. Just to be clear, this isn’t an outlier.

It’s clear most people don’t support Reform, but damn near everyone wants lower immigration.