The Reform Party is on track to get the most seats if an election took place this year – with combined support for the Conservatives and Labour collapsing to less than half of the national vote, new in-depth polling suggests.
Analysts at YouGov have carried out their first Multilevel Regression and Post-stratification (MRP) poll since the last general election. The research is based on thousands of people, and links voters and characteristics to help with its projection.
It is not a forecast, but an estimate of what could happen. The next election is not set to happen until 2029.
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This is the first such piece of research published by YouGov since the last general election, and is more in-depth than standard polling where people are just asked who they want to vote for.
With a sample size of 11,500 people, it found that if a general election were to happen tomorrow, Nigel Farage’s Reform UK would win 271 seats – the most of any party.
Labour would secure just 178 seats, less than half of the 411 it won last year.
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The Tories would fall to fourth place behind the Liberal Democrats, with just 46 Conservative MPs projected.
The Liberal Democrats, meanwhile, would gain nine extra seats to build a Commons caucus of 81 MPs, while the SNP would once again be the largest party in Scotland.
Both the Greens and Plaid Cymru would gain three seats each to both hold seven slots in parliament.
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If this scenario were to materialise, it would mean a coalition government would be needed, as no one party would have a majority.
It is unclear what any such coalition would look like. If Reform and the Conservatives teamed up, they would only have 317 seats – short of the 325 needed.
Theresa May won 317 seats in 2017, and attempted to govern with the support of the Northern Irish DUP support.
YouGov said: “Reform’s meteoric rise to becoming comfortably the largest party in a hung parliament is driven by impressive performances right across the country – including in Scotland.”
The two major political parties of the last century would between them have just 224 seats, fewer than Reform is set to take by itself.
Possibility of rainbow coalition
Labour and the Conservatives would together have the support of just 41% of voters – down from 59% last year.
The report released by YouGov said: “That a clear majority would now vote for someone other than the two established main parties of British politics is a striking marker of just how far the fragmentation of the voting public has gone over the past decade.”
It added: “According to our data and methods, 26% of voters would opt for Reform UK, 23% for Labour, 18% for the Conservatives, 15% the Liberal Democrats, 11% the Greens, 3% the SNP, 1% Plaid, and 2% for other parties and independent candidates.”
According to YouGov, Reform came out top of the polls in 99% of their simulations, with the rest having Labour at the top.
Some 97% of simulations had a hung parliament – where no one party has a majority – as the outcome.
In around 9% of simulations, Reform and the Conservatives have enough seats together to form a government, while in only “a tiny fraction” do Labour and the Lib Dems have enough together to govern.
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YouGov says “rainbow style coalition possibilities do appear”.
“For instance, combining the Labour, Liberal Democrat, and SNP totals produces a majority in just 3% of simulations.
“Adding the Greens brings this figure to 11%, while adding Plaid pushes it up to 26%.”
