YouGov put Reform UK on 25%, the Conservatives on 21%, Labour on 20% and the Greens down two points on 13% in its 5-6 July voting-intention poll 1. The lead has held across five weeks of scrutiny of Reform's funding and a Labour leadership upheaval. Voting intention measures which party respondents would back in an immediate general election, and the stability of Reform's number, against the backdrop of The Greens slipping from a 17% peak earlier in the cycle , suggests the manoeuvring at Westminster has not moved the wider electorate.
23AUG
Reform holds 25% through the storm
1 min read
19:09UTC
YouGov put Reform on 25%, the Conservatives 21%, Labour 20% and the Greens down two on 13%, its lead unmoved across five weeks of scrutiny.
PoliticsAssessed
Key takeaway
Reform sits unmoved at 25% despite a month of funding scrutiny and Labour's leadership crisis.
Deep Analysis
In plain English
Opinion polls ask a sample of voters which party they would support if there were an election tomorrow. YouGov's poll of 5 to 6 July put Reform UK on 25%, the Conservatives on 21%, Labour on 20% and the Greens down two points on 13%, a lead for Reform that has held steady for five weeks. A steady poll lead does not automatically mean a party will win the most seats in Parliament. Britain's electoral system rewards parties whose support is concentrated in specific areas, so a smaller national vote share can still produce more seats if it is better distributed. UKIP found this out in 2015: it won over one in eight votes nationally but ended up with only one MP.
Root Causes
Under first-past-the-post, a party's national vote share does not translate directly into Commons seats; what matters is whether that support is concentrated enough in individual constituencies to win them outright.
With Reform, the Conservatives, Labour and the Greens now splitting the vote across four parties in the 20 to 25% range, seat-modelling analysts note the outcome depends heavily on how evenly or unevenly each party's support is spread geographically, not simply on who leads the national poll.
Sources:YouGov
First Reported In
Update #11 · Farage to quit Clacton to force by-election
YouGov· 8 Jul 2026
Read original →Causes and effects
Caused by
Green air comes out as governing begins
The 5-6 July YouGov reading extends the same tracking poll series.
Occurred 1 Jun 2026
Read story →Reform plateau breaks after five weeks
The plateau break directly follows the reading that had shown Reform unchanged for five weeks.
Occurred 13 Jul 2026
Read story →This Event
Reform holds 25% through the storm
Reform's steady poll lead through a month of funding scrutiny and a Labour leadership crisis suggests the turmoil at the top is not shifting the ground beneath it.
Different Perspectives
Ian Davidson, Acting Returning Officer for Clacton
Davidson's office printed a 90cm ballot paper for the record 34-candidate field, with nothing in electoral law capping candidate numbers or the £500 deposit each pays. He expects the paper's size to raise printing costs and slow the count into the early hours, a strain that follows from the major parties' boycott, not from turnout.
Scottish Labour members
Members now choose between Michael Marra and Joe Fagan after Monica Lennon fell one MP nomination short of the three-MP, three-MSP threshold, a bar set by MPs and union officials rather than the wider membership. Whoever wins takes office having faced only one rival on the members' ballot.
Labour Party
Labour gained Penistone East from Reform on 20 August but lost Harraby South to Reform the same night, a wash that undercuts any claim of momentum. The party can point to beating Reform in a genuinely fought contest, but not to a pattern running only in its favour.
Liberal Democrats
The Liberal Democrats took two of Reform's May wards, Almondbury on 13 August and St Neots Eynesbury on 20 August, the latter on a 29.8-point rise in their own vote share. Both results let the party claim it is the beneficiary when voters turn against Reform, not Labour or the Conservatives.
Reform UK
Reform UK can point to winning Clacton unopposed by the other major parties and to taking Harraby South from Labour, a ward it had never previously contested. That gives the party two results to cite even as three previously held wards changed hands elsewhere in August.
Sinn Féin
Sinn Féin's John O'Dowd ruled out a Stormont walkout on 11 August despite calling the DUP increasingly difficult to work with, closing a question Conor Murphy had left open a fortnight earlier. Only Sinn Féin or the DUP can collapse the joint First Minister office, so the denial gives up the party's own leverage in budget talks.