Second YouGov MRP model since the 2024 election projects Reform UK would win 311 seats, just 15 short of a majority
YouGov’s second MRP since the 2024 general election shows Reform UK within touching distance of winning a parliamentary majority. Nonetheless, their seat total in a hypothetical election would almost certainly be enough to see them take the reins of government.
The central projection of our latest model shows Reform UK would win 311 seats were an election held tomorrow, according to YouGov’s industry-leading MRP model run on a sample of 13,000 voters.
This would leave them only 15 seats short of an absolute House of Commons majority, and represents an increase of 40 seats for Nigel Farage’s party compared to our MRP projection in June this year.
The vast majority of the additional Reform UK gains have come at the expense of Labour, who we now expect would win just 144 seats if an election were happening right now. That’s a drop of 34 seats on our June model, and a loss of 267 relative to the 2024 election result.
The remaining parties are largely unchanged since June. The results put the Conservatives being reduced further from their worst-ever 2024 result to a mere 45 seats (-1 versus the June MRP), putting them clearly behind the Liberal Democrats on 78 (-3).
The SNP’s projected recovery in Scotland remains largely unchanged from our June MRP, at 37 seats (-1), with similarly limited change for the Greens (7 seats, no change), Plaid Cymru (6 seats, -1), and others (3 seats, no change).
In terms of vote shares, Reform UK are up one point versus June to 27% of the national vote, Labour are down two on 21%, the Conservatives down one on 17%, the Liberal Democrats are static on 15%, as are the Greens on 11%.
An uncertain electoral landscape
As ever, our MRP seat projections come with uncertainty intervals and outcome probability estimates which form a vital part of our overall expectations.
Reform UK appear as the largest party in a hung parliament in 91% of simulations, and win an absolute majority in 8%. There are also around 0.5% cases in which Labour are the largest party in a hung parliament, but effectively zero where Labour manage to defend their majority.
The credible intervals for our seat projections paint a range of probable outcomes that we would expect from this model were an election being held tomorrow. Reform UK’s seat total could come in anywhere between 271 and 342, while that figure for Labour ranges from 118 to 185.
We would expect the Conservatives – the current official opposition – to win only 68 seats at the very maximum, with the Liberal Democrats projected to win no fewer than 65 seats and potentially as many as 86.
Many seats are now decided by small majorities
High levels of uncertainty and volatility are now the norm in British electoral politics, and the results of this MRP projection are no different in that regard.
On our central projections, Reform UK are winning no fewer than 82 seats by less than five percentage points. If they were to in fact lose all such hypothetical contests, they would end up falling well short of a parliamentary majority, rather than being within touching distance.
Narrow wins aren’t just limited to Reform UK. While their average individual seat majority in our MRP is nine points, the same is true for Labour, and the rump remaining Conservative seats are held by even more tenuous majorities - on average just five points. Victorious Liberal Democrats are relatively safer, projected to win their seats by 18 points on average.
Overall, the average individual seat majority across our MRP is ten percentage points, relative to an average of 16 points in the 2024 election and 26 points in 2019. As a result, the average constituency in our MRP is being won on just 34% of the vote, down from 40% in 2024 and 55% in 2019.
The lowest winning share in our latest MRP projection is 22%, for Labour in Cardiff East. This would be the lowest such result in a general election in modern Britain, surpassing the SDLP’s victory in Belfast South in 2015 on just 24.5% of the vote.
The scale of Labour’s collapse
Such a defeat for Labour would be an even greater loss of seats than the Conservatives experienced at the last general election, and a sharp turnaround from a majority victory that was expected by some to carry the party through at least two terms in office.
Reform UK are undoubtedly the biggest gainers in seat terms from Labour (though not necessarily in vote terms), taking 231 from the government on our model’s central estimates.
This includes several high-profile electoral casualties to Reform UK, including foreign secretary Yvette Cooper (Pontefract, Castleford and Knottingley), health secretary Wes Streeting (Ilford North), energy secretary and former leader Ed Miliband (Doncaster North), defence secretary John Healey (Rawmarsh and Conisbrough), work and pensions secretary Pat McFadden (Wolverhampton South East) and culture secretary Lisa Nandy (Wigan).
Former deputy prime minister Angela Rayner is also projected to lose her Ashton-under-Lyne constituency to Nigel Farage’s party, with deputy leadership candidate and current education secretary Bridget Phillipson’s Houghton and Sunderland South seat also expected to fall were an election held tomorrow.
Phillipson’s opponent in the deputy leadership election, Manchester Central MP Lucy Powell, is expected to keep hold of her seat by 12 point margin, while a close race is projected in chancellor Rachel Reeves’ Leeds West and Pudsey constituency, with Labour on 30% of the vote in our central estimate and Reform UK on 29%.
But Reform UK aren’t the only party to benefit from Labour’s collapse, with the party also set to lose 26 seats to the SNP, four to the Conservatives (three of which are in London), three to the Greens, two to Plaid, as well as one to the Liberal Democrats (Sheffield Hallam, Nick Clegg’s former seat).
Further Conservative losses
Of course, it’s not just Labour suffering severe losses. The Conservatives are projected to lose 80 of their remaining 121 seats, with 71 going to Reform UK, eight to the Liberal Democrats and one to the SNP (Gordon and Buchan).
As with Labour, these losses could include some big names, with former chancellor Jeremy Hunt’s Godalming and Ash seat being taken by the Liberal Democrats, while Reform UK are poised to unseat shadow chancellor Mel Stride (Central Devon), shadow housing secretary James Cleverly (Braintree) and former home secretary Suella Braverman (Fareham and Waterlooville).
Both Kemi Badenoch and Robert Jenrick would have close fights against Reform UK on their hands, with the Conservatives (29%) fractionally behind Reform UK (31%) in Jenrick's Newark constituency, while Badenoch’s North West Essex is split 28% to 27% between the two parties.
Boris Johnson’s former seat of Uxbridge and South Ruislip is one of the four seats the Conservatives are projected to gain from Labour, alongside Chelsea and Fulham, Hendon, and Earley and Woodley in Berkshire.
Big changes in Scotland and Wales
While the next general election is still a fair while off, elections to the devolved parliaments in Scotland and Wales are not, with our MRP showing huge shifts in the political landscapes in both countries.
Having suffered major losses last July and failing to win a Scotland-wide election for the first time since 2010, our MRP shows the SNP are once again the largest party north of Hadrian’s Wall, with their 37 projected seats contrasting with Labour’s nine, a loss of 28 since the 2024 election.
The Liberal Democrats would be expected to keep hold of five of the six Scottish seats they won last year, while Reform UK would pick up their first five seats in the country, taking three from the Conservatives and one from Labour. The Tories themselves are reduced to just one seat in Scotland in our MRP: West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine.
In Wales, Labour’s defeat would be even greater, being reduced to just three seats (all in Cardiff). Were this repeated in an election, it would be the first time since 1918 that Labour did not win the most seats in Wales.
Instead, Reform UK are projected to win 23 of Wales’s 32 constituencies, with Plaid Cymru taking the remaining six.
The Liberal Democrats would lose their single seat Welsh seat of Brecon, Radnor and Cwm Tawe, with this being one of two seats they are projected to lose to Reform UK (the other being Newton Abbot in Devon).
How far could tactical voting reduce Labour’s losses?
If we approach an actual election with a voting intention narrative similar to the one outlined in this MRP, one of the key considerations will be the extent to which a possible Reform UK victory might prompt tactical voting on the left, which previous YouGov research has indicated would occur.
We can use the results of the MRP to see how far such voting could stymy Labour’s losses: in the 231 seats they are currently projected to lose to Reform UK, the combined vote share of Labour, the Liberal Democrats and the Greens is greater than Reform UK’s vote share in all but 19 of them.
This is a purely illustrative example, however, as it should not be expected that the entirety of voters for other parties would be willing to lend their vote to Labour.
Plus, there’s no guarantee that tactical voting would cut just one way, with many Conservative and Reform UK voters saying they are open to backing the other to prevent Labour winning a seat. Indeed, according to our MRP, the combined Conservative and Reform UK vote share is greater than Labour’s in 76 of their 144 remaining seats.
See the full constituency results here
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