24JUL

Greens overtake Labour in YouGov national VI

1 min read

12:51UTC

YouGov's Westminster voting intention poll on 19-20 April fieldwork showed Reform on 27%, the Greens on 17% and Labour on 16%: the first national poll in which the Greens have outright led Labour, with Reform recording its largest-ever national lead.

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Key takeaway

The Greens lead Labour nationally for the first time; Reform's lead is the largest it has recorded.

YouGov's Westminster voting intention poll on 19-20 April fieldwork put Reform UK on 27%, the Green Party on 17%, the Conservatives on 17%, Labour on 16%, the Liberal Democrats on 14%, and Restore Britain on 3% ¹. The sample size was 2,472. It is the first national Westminster poll in which The Greens lead Labour outright, and Reform's largest-ever national polling lead. Labour finishes fifth on the central estimate.

The Greens' rise tracks the same urban-Labour decay registered by the Salford Barton and Winton by-election the same week, where the party finished third on 18.7%. Reform's 27% sits inside the polling band that has held since February . The novelty in the sample is the Labour floor, which has now broken below The Greens. Whether the result is a single-poll outlier or a sustained reordering of the centre-left vote is the question every party manager will be reading the next YouGov for. The local elections on 7 May supply the first ballot test.

Deep Analysis

In plain English

Westminster voting intention polls ask a sample of people which party they would vote for in a UK general election. YouGov's poll from 19-20 April 2026 , the most recent before the 7 May local elections , showed the Green Party (17%) ahead of Labour (16%) for the first time in any national poll. Reform UK led on 27%. The Conservatives tied the Greens at 17%. Labour finished fifth on 16%, behind four other parties. In the UK's Westminster voting system (first-past-the-post), a party's national vote share does not directly determine how many MPs it wins. Labour's vote is geographically concentrated in cities, meaning it wins more seats per percentage point than the Greens. The Greens won four Westminster seats in the 2024 general election with fewer total votes than this poll suggests they now hold nationally. The party's growth under Zack Polanski, who took over as leader in September 2025, has been driven by anti-government voters, particularly under-40s in urban areas, who are deserting Labour over Gaza, housing, and cost of living.

What could happen next?

Consequence
Labour now faces three-front vote loss: Reform on its right flank in traditional northern seats, Greens on its left in urban seats, and Your Party targeting Muslim-majority wards.

Sources:YouGov

Mentions:YouGov →Green Party →Reform UK →Restore Britain →Gaza →Liberal Democrats →Westminster →Zack Polanski →

First Reported In

Update #5 · 11 Days to Go: Six-of-six, RPA dies, Welsh lead flips

YouGov· 26 Apr 2026

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Causes and effects

Caused by

Green air comes out as governing begins

The Greens' 17% pre-election peak (ID:2804) is the baseline against which the 31 May-1 June 15% is measured as a two-point deflation

Occurred 1 Jun 2026

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This Event

Greens overtake Labour in YouGov national VI

Two polling firsts in the same sample, days from the local elections that will test both the Reform ceiling and the Labour floor on actual ballots.

Different Perspectives

Reform UK

Reform lost Old Catton, the Norfolk seat it won by 1,006 votes ten weeks earlier, to the Conservatives on 16 July, while holding second in both other 16 July by-elections it did not previously hold. The party's May intake already undershot MRP polling by 38%, evidence its local base is thinner than its seat count suggested.

MHCLG / Steve Reed

Reed confirmed 38 new unitaries for 14 counties on 16 July but held back West Sussex and Cambridgeshire and Peterborough, saying further time was needed. The department locked in the areas it was confident defending and paused the two it was not.

Local Government Association / litigating councils

Harlow's judicial review, filed 22 July, makes it the fifth council suing over reorganisation, joining Essex, Norfolk, Suffolk and Portsmouth, with none yet granted a full hearing. New LGA chair Eamonn O'Brien's 7 July intervention now sits behind their case, arguing the timetable itself risks statutory services.

Local Government Association

New chair Eamonn O'Brien broke the LGA's neutrality on reorganisation for the first time since December 2024, telling the incoming prime minister the 'unprecedented scale' of disaggregation risks statutory services and asking him to adjust the LGR timetable, aligning the sector's institutional voice with the judicial review claims Suffolk, Essex and Norfolk have already filed.

Incoming Burnham government

Burnham secured 349 of the backing the NEC's 81-MP threshold required by 13 July, becoming Labour leader on 17 July and prime minister on 20 July without a members' ballot. He now inherits the LGR timetable the LGA wants him to adjust and a finance bill his own backbencher, Liam Byrne, is trying to harden further via amendment NC34.

Rupert Lowe / Restore Britain

Lowe called Farage's Clacton contest a 'Reform-sponsored media circus' and kept Restore Britain out of it, pledging instead to stand in the second by-election he expects the Harborne inquiry to force later this year. The boycott doubles as a signal that Restore Britain, not Reform, will contest the 'real' vote.