Labour overtakes Reform UK in polls for the first time in over a year
Labour has overtaken Reform UK in the polls for the first time in well over a year, as the party enjoys a bounce under new prime minister Andy Burnham and insurgents on the left and right have suffered from a series of mishaps and scandals.
Burnham’s party currently commands about a 25 per cent share of votes in public opinion polls, overtaking Reform, now on 24 per cent, for the first time since April 2025, according to the FT’s poll tracker.
Labour’s recovery under Burnham, who succeeded Sir Keir Starmer as prime minister last month, appears to have come as much from a drop in support for Nigel Farage’s populist Reform as for the leftwing Greens.
Reform has suffered a bruising few months, marked by a high-profile by-election defeat in Makerfield to Burnham, and a succession of damaging revelations about gifts and donations to senior party figures that do not appear to have been registered properly.
Support for the Greens, who experienced a surge in public support and membership after Zack Polanski became party leader just under a year ago, has fallen to 12 per cent, the lowest level since last September.
Polanski has faced criticism this week for reposting a photo of a man with a T-shirt showing a guillotine and the phrase “we’re only making plans for Nigel”, an apparent reference to Farage. Though he removed the photo from his Instagram and said it was a mistake, he refused to apologise to the Reform leader.
The incident was one of several blunders the Green Party leader has made in recent months, often tied to his frenetic use of social media.
Meanwhile, the personal opinion ratings for both Farage and Polanski have dropped at a time when the standings of the leaders of the two mainstream parties, Burnham and Kemi Badenoch of the Conservatives, have climbed.
Ben Ansell, professor of politics at Oxford university, said the shift in the polls was a sign that the UK’s fragmented electoral landscape may be reverting to the “two-party” system that has defined British politics for generations.
“It’s really hard to replace one of the two big parties, especially when you have all these handicaps,” he said.
Labour’s rebound began after Burnham’s decisive June by-election victory in Makerfield, and accelerated again after the former Greater Manchester mayor became prime minister two weeks ago with a promise to “bring back hope”.
In the fortnight since, he has announced a blitz of measures intended to combat the cost-of-living crisis, including a VAT cut on electricity bills, a reduction in business rates for pubs and a £2 cap on bus fares outside London.
Burnham has also promised to fix the UK’s social care system and signalled his plans for welfare reform while communicating his proposals and approach in a laid-back style across social media platforms and media interviews.
But analysts cautioned against reading too much into the initial optimism for Burnham, whose approval rating has surpassed the high that Starmer reached after Labour’s landslide 2024 general election victory.
“He’s obviously closed the gap [with Reform] . . . In that sense it’s all good news. But I think it’s all good news because he hasn’t tried to do anything hard yet,” said Anthony Wells, head of political polling at YouGov.
“At the moment he’s just setting out, ‘here’s all the nice things I’d like to do’,” Wells continued. “It’s only when details come out that you start upsetting people, or when you start paying for things.”
Deputy Editor
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