Labour Surges To Eight-Point Lead In New Poll
4 min read
Labour has extended its lead to eight percentage points in a new Ipsos poll shared with PoliticsHome.
It is the largest Labour lead recorded by the pollster during this Parliament.
“The Labour Party under Andy Burnham is resurgent, consolidating voters on the left behind them,” said Keiran Pedley, Director of Politics at Ipsos in the UK.
However, he urged caution against “overreacting to one poll”.
“The government faces a challenging Budget this coming week and the lesson of the last year is that British politics is volatile,” he told PoliticsHome.
The poll, which surveyed 1,109 people between 15 and 22 October, put Labour in first place on 32 per cent.
Kemi Badenoch’s Conservatives are Labour’s closest rival on 24 per cent, with Nigel Farage’s Reform UK in third on 20 per cent.
It is the first time that the Tories have been second place in an Ipsos poll since June 2025.
The Liberal Democrats and Greens are on 9 per cent and 8 per cent respectively.
Labour's polling has improved significantly since Burnham replaced Keir Starmer in No 10 in July.
However, his government faces a major test next week when Chancellor John Healey delivers his first Budget against a backdrop of tight economic constraints and geopolitical instability.
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According to Ipsos, the Labour and Tory positions are improving partly because the parties are losing fewer votes to the Greens and Reform than they were previously.
The pollster’s data shows Labour is now losing 5 per cent of its 2024 vote to Zack Polanski’s Greens, compared with 12 per cent last month.
Similarly, the Conservatives are now losing 16 per cent of their 2024 vote to Reform, compared with 22 per cent last month.
Green Party leader Zack Polanski's ratings have worsened in recent weeks (Alamy)
On the other hand, Reform is now losing 15 per cent of its 2024 vote to the Tories, compared with 6 per cent last month, raising fresh questions about whether Farage's party can reverse its recent loss in momentum.
“On the right, the tectonic plates have been shifting recently and now this is reflected in the Conservatives – not Reform UK – being in a clear second place,” said Pedley.
Labour are up 5 percentage points and the Tories up 3 percentage points on Ipsos' September poll, whereas Reform and the Greens are down 3 percentage points and 5 percentage points.
Ipsos also surveyed voters' satisfaction with party leaders and the government.
More than a third (35 per cent) said they were satisfied with the job Burnham is doing as Prime Minister, up four percentage points from September, while 45 per cent are dissatisfied.
Thirty-five per cent said they were satisfied with the job Badenoch is doing as leader of the Conservative Party – the highest rating with Ipsos since she became Leader of the Opposition.
Despite the improvement in Badenoch's personal ratings, just 24 per cent think the Conservatives are ready for government, but this figure has been growing in recent months in Ipsos polling.
Green Party leader Polanski has seen a significant worsening of his satisfaction rating in recent weeks, with 17 per cent of respondents satisfied with the job he is doing, and nearly six in 10 (56 per cent) dissatisfied.
This is the highest level of dissatisfaction recorded by Ipsos since Polanski became leader and comes amid a difficult month for the Greens following a by-election defeat in Holborn and St Pancras and widespread backlash to their "Zionism is Racism" motion.
However, Farage is the lowest-scoring party leader, with a net satisfaction rate of -42.
Sixty-four per cent of people are dissatisfied with the job he is doing as Reform leader – an increase of 3 percentage points since Ipsos' September poll.
