YouGov gave Labour 24% and Reform UK 22% in fieldwork completed on 11 August, the first Labour lead the pollster has recorded in eighteen months and Reform's joint lowest reading since January 20251. John Curtice, the psephologist at the University of Strathclyde whose averages are the usual reference point for these movements, puts Reform's polling average at about 27% before 7 July and about 24% since2.
One poll on its own settles nothing, and this one does not stand on its own. More in Common had Labour ahead by 28 to 24 in late July, and YouGov's own five-week plateau at 25% had already broken apart in mid-July. Three readings from two companies now point the same way, which is the minimum a movement needs before it stops being noise.
The turn in the average coincides with a decision rather than a scandal. Nigel Farage announced on 7 July that he would give up Clacton and fight it again, vacating the seat the following day, and Curtice's before-and-after split falls either side of that date. The Christopher Harborne donation, the reading most often offered for Reform's decline, was disclosed weeks before either the polling or the councillor departures moved, though a donor story can plausibly take weeks to work through to voters. We report the coincidence of dates and go no further.
A party polling in the mid-twenties rather than close to thirty claims a different projected seat count in the arguments over reorganisation boundaries and the 2027 unitary elections, and Reform will be making those arguments through the autumn.
