Nigel Farage is on course to become Prime Minister according to polls (Image: Getty)
Keir Starmer is facing election meltdown as a nightmare new poll puts Nigel Farage’s Reform UK 18 points ahead of Labour. A survey by Find Out Now found 34% of voters would back Reform if an election was held today – more than twice the 16% that said they would back Labour.
And it found the Conservatives were level with Labour, as 16% of voters said they would vote Tory. Find Out Now has consistently given Reform a bigger lead than other polling companies. But the firm says that other firms are under-estimating the Reform vote. Mr Farage enjoyed a major coup this week as he unveiled MP Danny Kruger, previously a senior Conservative, as the latest politician to join Reform. Mr Kruger will help the party prepare for Government.
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Meanwhile, Sir Keir Starmer’s Labour Party has been rocked by a series of disasters including the resignation of deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner and the sacking of former ambassador to the US Peter Mandelson.
In the latest blow, Tories claimed Chancellor Rachel Reeves has “lost control of the public finances” after damning official figures show borrowing has reached record levels.
The huge debts racked up by the Treasury will force the Chancellor to raise taxes in her Budget on November 26. But even then, the nation will be paying the price for years or decades to come, Tories warned.
New official figures showed borrowing in the financial year to August 2025, a period of just five months, was £83.8 billion. This was £16.2 billion more than in the same five-month period of 2024.
And it is the second-highest April to August borrowing since monthly records began in 1993. The one year it was higher was 2020, in the height of the Covid pandemic, when the Government borrowed to pay for schemes such as furlough as the economy closed down.
Shadow Chancellor Mel Stride said: “Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves are too weak and distracted to take the action needed to reduce the deficit.
“The Chancellor has lost control of the public finances, and Labour’s weakness means much needed welfare reforms have been abandoned. No wonder our borrowing costs recently hit a 27-year high.
“The Conservatives are the only party committed to fiscal responsibility and living within our means.”
Nightmare for Keir Starmer as new election poll shows Reform twice as popular as Labour
Keir Starmer has faced renewed political pressure after a new poll highlighted the scale of the challenge facing Labour, with Reform UK continuing to compete strongly for support among voters.
The headline claim that Reform is “twice as popular” as Labour, however, needs to be placed carefully in context. National Westminster polling in September 2026 has generally shown a much closer contest between the two parties. YouGov’s latest survey, conducted on September 27 and 28, put Reform on 25 per cent and Labour on 24 per cent among 2,310 adults in Great Britain.
That means the latest national voting-intention evidence does not show Reform at twice Labour’s level. Instead, it shows a fragmented political landscape in which Reform, Labour and the Conservatives are competing closely.
Nevertheless, the dramatic headline reflects the continuing scrutiny of Labour’s position after a period of severe electoral pressure.
Reform’s challenge to Labour
Reform has transformed the political landscape since the 2024 general election, attracting voters who previously supported the Conservatives as well as some people who have become dissatisfied with the established parties.
Immigration, national sovereignty, taxation and opposition to Labour’s policies remain important elements of Reform’s political message.
For Labour, the difficulty is that Reform’s challenge is not limited to one part of the electorate.
The party has also faced competition from the Greens and Liberal Democrats, meaning that Labour cannot simply concentrate on winning back voters who have moved to Reform.
Recent YouGov analysis of tactical voting illustrates the complexity. The pollster found increasing openness among voters to voting tactically in order to prevent particular parties from winning, while separate polling suggested that some progressive voters were becoming more willing to support Labour when motivated by opposition to Reform leader Nigel Farage.
The latest numbers tell a different story
The most recent YouGov voting-intention poll provides an important counterweight to the more dramatic headline.
Reform recorded 25 per cent, Labour 24 per cent and the Conservatives 19 per cent. The Liberal Democrats were on 12 per cent and the Greens on 11 per cent.
Reform’s four-point increase from the previous YouGov survey was notable, while Labour moved up by one point.
Only a week earlier, YouGov had Labour and Reform level on 23 per cent, with the Conservatives on 21 per cent.
The sequence demonstrates how quickly individual polls can move.
It also means that describing Reform as twice as popular as Labour would require a specific poll, subgroup or alternative measure rather than the latest national Westminster voting-intention figures.
That distinction matters because voting-intention polls measure how respondents say they would vote, while other surveys can measure favourability, willingness to consider a party, or attitudes towards particular policies.
Labour’s difficult inheritance
The political pressure on Labour has nevertheless been substantial.
The party suffered heavy losses in the 2026 local elections and experienced difficult results across parts of Britain. Reuters reported in May that Starmer vowed to remain in office after Labour suffered major losses in local elections and parliamentary contests in Scotland and Wales.
Those results generated questions about Labour’s electoral coalition and the government’s political direction.
YouGov’s analysis of the local elections found that only 46 per cent of people who had voted Labour at the 2024 general election and then participated in the local elections remained with Labour. Twenty-two per cent switched to the Greens, 16 per cent to the Liberal Democrats and six per cent to Reform.
That pattern suggested that Labour’s problem could not simply be described as voters moving from Labour to Farage.
Some voters were moving further left, while others were moving towards centrist or liberal alternatives.
Reform’s own difficulties
The picture is also more complicated for Reform than the headline suggests.
Earlier in September, YouGov recorded Reform on 21 per cent, its lowest result in the pollster’s tracker since it restarted in January 2025. Labour was on 23 per cent and the Conservatives were also on 21 per cent.
The Independent similarly reported that Reform had fallen back after its strong performance in the May elections, with competition from Rupert Lowe’s Restore Britain and controversies surrounding donations to Farage contributing to a more difficult period for the party.
The party subsequently recovered in the latest YouGov survey.
That movement is an important reminder that neither Labour nor Reform has a fixed level of support.
A fragmented electoral map
The electoral situation becomes even more complicated when polling is converted into projected parliamentary seats.
YouGov’s large MRP model, based on nearly 17,000 respondents surveyed between August 23 and September 18, projected Labour as the largest party in a hypothetical election held at that point, with 241 seats.
The Conservatives were projected on 130 seats and Reform on 123, while the Liberal Democrats were projected on 71. The model estimated that Labour would still be 85 seats short of the 326 required for an overall majority.
MRP modelling is not a prediction of a future election result. It is a statistical estimate based on current polling data and assumptions about constituency-level voting behaviour.
Its significance here is that it demonstrates how national vote shares do not translate directly into parliamentary seats.
That is particularly important for Reform, whose support can be substantial nationally but unevenly distributed geographically.
Starmer’s political problem
For Starmer, the challenge is therefore broader than simply stopping Reform from overtaking Labour in a national poll.
Labour needs to maintain support among its traditional voters while also competing for voters who moved towards Reform, the Conservatives, Liberal Democrats and Greens.
That creates difficult political choices.
On immigration, Labour has sought to demonstrate stronger border control while defending its own approach to asylum and migration. On the economy, the government has faced pressure over living costs, taxation and public services.
Meanwhile, Reform has attempted to present itself as an alternative to the established parties rather than simply another opposition force.
The competition has therefore become a struggle over which party can define the central political questions.
Leadership ratings provide another measure
Voting intention is only one indicator of political sentiment.
YouGov’s August polling showed a substantial improvement in public opinion towards Andy Burnham after he became Labour leader and prime minister, while Nigel Farage remained considerably less popular personally than the Reform party’s voting-intention figures might suggest.
In that survey, 46 per cent of Britons said they had a favourable opinion of Burnham, compared with 33 per cent who viewed him unfavourably. Farage was viewed favourably by 23 per cent and unfavourably by 67 per cent.
These figures illustrate why party support and leader popularity should not be treated as interchangeable measures.
A party can receive votes from people who have an unfavourable opinion of its leader, just as a politician can have stronger personal ratings than their party.
The significance of the headline
The claim that Reform is “twice as popular” as Labour makes for a striking political headline, but the latest evidence points to a considerably more competitive picture.
The most recent YouGov national poll has the two parties only one percentage point apart. Other September polls have also shown a close contest: Ipsos recorded Labour on 27 per cent and Reform on 23 per cent, while Survation put Labour on 27 per cent and Reform on 24 per cent.
The political significance is therefore less about one dramatic ratio and more about the volatility of the electorate.
Labour is no longer operating in a straightforward two-party environment. Reform is a major competitor, while the Conservatives, Liberal Democrats and Greens are also competing for substantial shares of the vote.
For Starmer, the central challenge is to build a coalition broad enough to withstand pressure from several directions.
For Reform, the challenge is maintaining support while facing competition from the Conservatives and from newer parties on the right.
The latest polls do not establish what will happen at the next general election. They provide snapshots of public opinion at particular moments, and those snapshots have moved considerably during 2026.
What they do demonstrate is that Britain’s political landscape remains unusually fluid. A poll showing an overwhelming Reform lead would be striking, but the latest national polling instead points to a much closer contest—and one in which relatively small movements in support can change the political picture substantially.