Reform UK double their GB-wide lead and hit a new all-time record high vote share in YouGov poll - but SNP retain double-digit lead in the Scottish subsampleI had wondered after the last batch of polls whether the Reform UK vote might finally have plateaued, but that theory seems to have gone out of the window. As I've mentioned a few times before, YouGov are in a special category because they showed the Brexit Party in the lead in a few polls back in mid-2019, with a peak vote of 26% - and because Reform is a direct legal continuation of the Brexit Party, it's therefore been harder for Reform to hit a new record high with YouGov than with other firms. But it's finally, unambiguously happened - and we consequently move into uncharted territory.
GB-wide voting intentions (YouGov, 16th-17th February 2025):
Reform UK 27% (+1)
Labour 25% (-)
Conservatives 21% (-)
Liberal Democrats 14% (-)
Greens 9% (-)
SNP 3% (-)
Plaid Cymru 1% (-)
Scottish subsample: SNP 34%, Reform UK 22%, Labour 22%, Conservatives 8%, Liberal Democrats 7%, Greens 6%
Corroboration of the general trend is offered by a poll from More In Common, which also shows Reform rising one point to hit a new high watermark of 26% with that polling firm, and to move into a one-point lead over Labour.
Meanwhile, the tables from Saturday night's Scottish poll from Norstat have been published, which allows us to tie up some loose ends. Although we already knew that the independence question was tied 50-50 after Don't Knows were excluded, it turns out that if Don't Knows are left in, Yes has a slender lead of 48% to 47%. If nothing else that's psychologically important, because it means that across all polling firms, all of the last four published independence polls have shown a Yes lead of some description. The numbers with Don't Knows removed but rounded to one decimal place are: Yes 50.4%, No 49.6%.
The Westminster voting intention percentages are:
SNP 32% (+1)
Labour 18% (-2)
Reform UK 17% (+2)
Conservatives 13% (-1)
Liberal Democrats 11% (+2)
Greens 6% (-)
Labour have never been in so much danger of being overtaken by Reform in Scotland. OK, they've been in third place behind the Tories many times over the last few years, but is this a wholly new category of threat due to Reform eating into their core working-class support? Norstat already have Reform miles ahead of Labour among lower-income voters (by 26% to 14%). That said, at the height of the Ruth Davidson surge in 2017, the Tories must have been taking a fair amount of working-class support that would once have been solidly Labour - not least in the constituency of Lanark and Hamilton East, which amazingly the Tories came within 266 votes of winning in 2017.
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jkellysta@yahoo.co.ukSource: Reform UK double their GB-wide lead and hit a new all-time record high vote share in YouGov poll - but SNP retain double-digit lead in the Scottish subsample (//)