Sir Keir Starmer (Image: Getty)
A new poll will make grim reading for Keir Starmer, with Labour’s popularity seemingly tumbling even further. Find Out Now‘s Voting Intention tracker surveys the public on who they would vote for if an election were called tomorrow. Their latest polling, conducted on September 17 and 18, shows the governing party on its lowest ever share of the vote (16%).
It represents a drop of -3 since September 10, according to the firm. Little more than a year after Sir Keir’s landslide victory, Labour is now level with the Tories, who also got just 16%.
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But it’s good news for Reform UK, who remain at 34%, and appear to be cementing their position as the main opposition to the current Labour Government.
Meanwhile, the Lib Dems were found to be on 13%, representing an uptick of +1 on last week, and the Greens still on 12%.
However, the firm notes that “small week-on-week changes in results may be caused more by random sampling variation, rather than reflect genuine shifts in public opinion”.
According to Find Out Now, the main trend the election has been Reform’s growth, “driven by them by retaining almost all of their 2024 GE support (retaining far more than any other party), winning over a third (38%) of 2024 GE Conservative voters, and winning a majority (64%) of people who didn’t vote in 2024 but say they would ‘definitely vote’ this time”.
You can find the full poll and information about how it is conducted, here.
Keir Starmer in crisis as Labour drops to 16% in devastating new poll
Keir Starmer faced renewed pressure after a YouGov voting-intention poll put Labour on just 16 per cent, placing the party level with the Greens and well behind Reform UK.
The survey, conducted on May 10 and 11, 2026, put Reform on 28 per cent, the Conservatives on 17 per cent, the Greens on 16 per cent, Labour on 16 per cent and the Liberal Democrats on 13 per cent. The result represented a two-point fall for Labour compared with the previous YouGov survey.
The figure was particularly significant because it came during a period of intense pressure on Starmer’s leadership, following difficult local and devolved elections and growing debate within Labour about the party’s political direction.
However, the 16 per cent figure should not be treated as the current Labour position. More recent polling has produced substantially higher Labour figures. An Ipsos survey conducted in September put Labour on 27 per cent, four points ahead of Reform, while the latest YouGov poll conducted on September 27-28 put Labour on 24 per cent and Reform on 25 per cent.
The contrast illustrates how quickly Britain’s political polling landscape has been changing.
A difficult period for Labour
The May YouGov result came at an especially difficult moment for Starmer.
Labour had suffered major losses in the 2026 local elections, while Reform and the Greens made significant gains. The result intensified questions about whether Labour was losing support simultaneously to parties on both its right and its left.
The party’s difficulties were not confined to Westminster voting intention.
An Opinium poll conducted immediately after the local elections put Labour on 19 per cent, compared with 28 per cent for Reform, 18 per cent for the Conservatives and 16 per cent for the Greens. The same survey recorded Starmer’s net approval rating at minus 43, while a majority of respondents believed he should step down.
The findings highlighted a potentially complicated problem for Labour. Reform was attracting some voters dissatisfied with the government’s record, while the Greens were also taking support from parts of Labour’s traditional electoral coalition.
YouGov’s analysis of the 2026 local elections subsequently found that only 46 per cent of people who had voted Labour in the 2024 general election and 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 evidence suggested that Labour’s difficulties could not simply be explained by competition from Reform.
Reform’s rise
The 28 per cent recorded by Reform in the May YouGov poll placed Nigel Farage’s party comfortably ahead of Labour.
That result reflected the broader rise of Reform during the first part of 2026. Ipsos polling conducted in May similarly put Reform on 27 per cent and Labour on 20 per cent, giving Reform a seven-point lead.
Immigration remained one of Reform’s central issues, alongside taxation, government spending, national sovereignty and criticism of the established political parties.
For Labour, the challenge was therefore not simply to regain voters who had moved towards Reform, but also to address dissatisfaction among voters who had moved towards parties such as the Greens and Liberal Democrats.
That created competing pressures on the government.
A stronger emphasis on immigration and border control could potentially address some voters who had moved rightwards, while policies associated with the centre-left could be important in retaining voters concerned about public services, living costs and environmental issues.
The Starmer leadership question
The 16 per cent poll also arrived amid growing discussion about Starmer’s future.
Polling of Labour members conducted around the same period found substantial support for a change of leader. A LabourList survey reported that 57 per cent of party members believed there should be a change at the top, while 84 per cent of those supporting a change wanted a timetable for replacing Starmer.
Such polling did not itself determine Labour’s leadership, but it demonstrated the scale of dissatisfaction among sections of the party.
At the same time, leadership polling showed that changing leader would not necessarily eliminate Labour’s wider electoral difficulties.
The party’s problems involved questions about economic policy, taxation, public services, immigration, relations with business, internal party management and the challenge from several competing parties.
The identity of the Labour leader was only one part of that broader political equation.
The picture changed later in the year
The most important qualification to the 16 per cent headline is that subsequent polling showed Labour recovering from its May low.
Ipsos’ September Political Monitor, based on fieldwork between September 10 and 15, put Labour on 27 per cent, compared with 23 per cent for Reform and 21 per cent for the Conservatives. Ipsos therefore recorded a four-point Labour lead heading into party conference season.
That poll also contained a more complicated picture of public opinion.
Seven in ten respondents said they were dissatisfied with how the government was running the country, despite Labour’s voting-intention lead. Ipsos also found that Andy Burnham was preferred to Nigel Farage and Kemi Badenoch when respondents were asked who would make the best prime minister.
The latest YouGov figures available at the end of September were even closer. Its September 27-28 survey put Reform on 25 per cent and Labour on 24 per cent, with the Conservatives on 19 per cent, the Liberal Democrats on 12 per cent and the Greens on 11 per cent.
That makes clear why individual polls need to be treated cautiously.
A single survey can capture a temporary movement in opinion, while different pollsters can produce noticeably different results because of their methodologies, sampling and weighting.
What the 16 per cent result tells us
The May figure remains significant because it demonstrated how low Labour’s support could fall during a period of acute political difficulty.
It also exposed the fragmentation of Britain’s electoral landscape.
In previous decades, a government losing support might primarily have worried about one principal opposition party. Labour’s current position is more complicated. Reform competes for voters who prioritise immigration, sovereignty and dissatisfaction with established parties, while the Greens and Liberal Democrats compete for other parts of Labour’s former coalition.
The Conservatives are also seeking to rebuild their position.
The result is an unusually fluid electoral environment in which relatively small changes in vote share can have substantial consequences under Britain’s first-past-the-post system.
Recent modelling underlines that volatility. YouGov’s September MRP, based on almost 17,000 people surveyed between August 23 and September 18, projected Labour as the largest party in a hypothetical immediate election but without an overall majority. It projected Labour on 241 seats, Reform on 123 and the Conservatives on 130.
An MRP is not a prediction of what will happen at a future election; it is an estimate based on the information and assumptions used in the model.
Pressure remains despite recovery
The movement from 16 per cent in May to the mid-20s in September illustrates why the political situation cannot be captured by one headline figure.
Labour has recovered considerably from the low point recorded by YouGov, but its more recent polling position remains well below the 34 per cent share the party won at the 2024 general election.
The Independent previously noted that Labour’s average polling rating fell by around 10 points during its first year in government, highlighting the scale of the decline from its election result.
For Starmer, the challenge therefore involves more than avoiding another 16 per cent result.
The government needs to maintain support across a fragmented electorate while demonstrating progress on the issues that voters identify as important. At the same time, Labour faces pressure from Reform on the right and the Greens and Liberal Democrats in other parts of the political spectrum.
The May poll provided a stark illustration of what can happen when several sources of pressure converge.
The later figures show that public opinion is not fixed. Labour’s recovery demonstrates that polling lows can be reversed, while the narrow gap between Labour and Reform in the latest YouGov survey shows that the political landscape remains highly competitive.
The 16 per cent figure was therefore a warning sign rather than a permanent measure of Labour’s support. Its significance lies in showing the depth of the party’s vulnerability during one of the most difficult periods of Starmer’s leadership—and in highlighting how rapidly Britain’s political balance can change.