Labour regains poll lead in UK as Reform support slips

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Labour regains poll lead in UK

Highlights

Labour leads Reform UK in the Financial Times poll tracker for the first time since April 2025, following a June by-election win and Burnham's premiership.
Reform UK support has slipped due to a Makerfield by-election defeat and controversies over unregistered gifts and donations to senior party members.
Labour's poll momentum is buoyed by policy announcements like a VAT cut on electricity and a £2 bus fare cap, but analysts caution improvements may be fragile as policy scrutiny increases.

Poll tracker shows Labour's renewed momentum

As reported by the Financial Times, its poll tracker shows Labour ahead of Reform UK for the first time since April 2025, with Burnham's party benefiting both from its own rebound and from declining support for Nigel Farage's party.

Burnham, who succeeded Sir Keir Starmer as prime minister last month, is seeing Labour recover after a decisive June by-election win in Makerfield and a further lift after entering Downing Street two weeks ago. Reform has endured a difficult stretch marked by that by-election defeat and revelations about gifts and donations to senior party figures that do not appear to have been properly registered.

The Greens are also losing ground after a period of rapid growth under leader Zack Polanski. Support for the party has dropped to 12 per cent, and Polanski has come under criticism this week after reposting an image that appeared to reference Farage before deleting it and calling the post a mistake, while refusing to apologise.

Policy pledges lift Labour, analysts urge caution

Since taking office, Burnham has announced a series of measures aimed at easing the cost-of-living crisis, including a VAT cut on electricity bills, lower business rates for pubs and a £2 cap on bus fares outside London. He has also pledged to repair the UK's social care system and signalled welfare reform plans while promoting his agenda in a more relaxed style across social media and interviews.

Personal ratings for both Farage and Polanski have fallen as Burnham and Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch have improved their standings. Ben Ansell, a politics professor at Oxford university, says the movement in the polls suggests the UK's fragmented political map may be shifting back toward a more traditional two-party pattern.

Analysts still warn that the early improvement may prove fragile. Anthony Wells, head of political polling at YouGov, says Burnham has narrowed the gap with Reform, but adds that the harder political test will come when detailed policies and funding choices begin to generate opposition.

Our earlier article on Andy Burnham’s first two weeks as prime minister outlined how a fast sequence of voter-facing policy announcements and a more upbeat public style helped Labour edge ahead of Reform UK in some polls. It also examined the “Number 10 North” push in Manchester and noted that key questions—especially around funding, delivery, and longer-term structure—were being deferred until later fiscal and policy decisions, leaving uncertainty over how the agenda would be paid for.

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