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UK Local Elections 2026
24JUL

Reform plateau breaks after five weeks

1 min read
12:51UTC

YouGov's five-week Reform plateau broke in mid-July, with the Conservatives and Labour tied at 19% and the Greens up to 15%.

PoliticsDeveloping
Key takeaway

YouGov's Reform plateau broke, leaving the Conservatives and Labour tied at 19%.

Deep Analysis

In plain English

For five weeks, opinion polls had barely moved: Reform UK sitting comfortably ahead of everyone else. That finally changed in YouGov's poll taken 12-13 July. Reform dropped slightly to 24%, while the Conservatives and Labour are now tied at 19% each, and the Greens jumped two points to 15%, their biggest single move of the whole parliament so far.

Deep Analysis
Root Causes

YouGov's own fieldwork notes flag the 12-13 July poll as its first conducted after Burnham's confirmation as Labour leader was locked in, rather than merely rumoured, the most likely proximate trigger for movement after five weeks of an unchanged Reform lead.

The two-point jump for the Greens, their fastest movement of the parliament, coincides with the same fieldwork window, suggesting some of the shift is undecided or soft Labour-considering voters moving to a clearer alternative rather than direct Reform-to-Green switching, though YouGov's topline does not publish internal transfer data.

First Reported In

Update #12 · The finance bill Reform outran is back

YouGov· 15 Jul 2026
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Different Perspectives
Reform UK
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
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
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
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
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
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.