Kemi Badenoch has secured a post-conference polling boost for the Conservatives, but Labour remains comfortably ahead as Andy Burnham continues to lead Nigel Farage’s Reform UK.
The latest Opinium voting-intention poll puts Labour on 29 per cent, down one point from the previous week, with Reform falling two points to 23 per cent. The Conservatives have risen three points to 20 per cent, their strongest movement of the three largest parties following Badenoch’s conference in Manchester.
The Greens have fallen two points to 9 per cent after a difficult week dominated by their controversial conference vote on Zionism and Zack Polanski’s defeat in the Holborn and St Pancras by-election. The Liberal Democrats are unchanged on 9 per cent.
It means Labour retains a six-point advantage over Reform while the gap between Farage and Badenoch has narrowed to just three points.
Opinium surveyed 2,050 UK adults between 7 and 9 October, covering the period immediately after the Conservative Party conference. The previous Opinium poll had Labour on 30 per cent, Reform on 25 per cent and the Conservatives on 17 per cent.
Badenoch gets the conference bounce she needed
The movement will offer some relief to Conservatives after months in which the party has frequently found itself fighting Reform for second place rather than challenging Labour for the lead.
Badenoch used conference to set out a more explicitly tax-cutting programme, including a pledge to exempt family homes from inheritance tax and proposals aimed at reducing the cost of employing younger workers.
Opinium’s James Crouch said both Burnham and Badenoch had benefited from their respective conferences, with the two traditional largest parties now enjoying their highest combined vote share for almost two years.
He said:
“Andy Burnham and Kemi Badenoch both delivered commanding speeches, secured positive headlines and boosted their parties’ vote shares.”
Crouch added that the question was whether the improvement represented a temporary conference effect or “the beginning of a genuine trend”.
There was better news for Badenoch in the poll’s leadership ratings too. She has reached a net approval rating of zero, improving from minus one the previous week, while Burnham remains the only major leader in positive territory on +8.
Farage has fallen four points to -26, while Polanski has dropped seven points to -29, making the Green leader the least popular of the five leaders measured by Opinium.
Labour’s lead over Reform has widened again
The poll continues a striking reversal from where British politics stood immediately before Labour conference.
A YouGov survey conducted on 27 and 28 September had Reform ahead on 25 per cent and Labour narrowly behind on 24 per cent. The Conservatives were on 19 per cent.
Since Burnham’s conference speech, several polls have put Labour back in front. YouGov subsequently recorded Labour on 27 per cent and Reform on 22 per cent, while Opinium had Labour five points ahead last week and six points ahead in its latest survey.
It is a considerable change from earlier in the year, when Reform spent months leading national polling and Labour’s support collapsed during the final period of Keir Starmer’s premiership.
Burnham took office on 20 July and initially produced an immediate rise in Labour support. Some pollsters warned by September that the initial “Burnham bounce” had run its course, but Labour conference appears to have delivered another improvement. The Independent’s polling analysis estimates Labour gained roughly seven points on average after changing leader.
Reform remains firmly in second place in the new Opinium numbers, but its 23 per cent is well below some of the polling leads it enjoyed before Burnham entered Downing Street.
Badenoch tells Tories to prepare for an election ‘at any point’
Despite Burnham repeatedly ruling out an early general election, Badenoch has instructed Conservative headquarters to prepare for the possibility of a contest being called at short notice.
She told the Mail on Sunday:
“We know there’s a battle of ideas coming in British politics and I’ve instructed the Conservative Party to be ready for an election at any point.”
Badenoch added that voters would face a choice between Conservative plans to reduce taxes and spending and a Labour government she accused of increasing taxation and refusing to cut welfare.
The Conservatives have reportedly been making election preparations since July, shortly after Burnham replaced Starmer.
Speculation about an early vote has persisted because Labour inherited a large Commons majority from the 2024 election while polling has been far less favourable for much of the current Parliament. Some Labour MPs have suggested privately that Burnham could be tempted to secure his own mandate while his personal ratings remain strong.
The prime minister has repeatedly rejected that suggestion.
There is no requirement for a new election simply because Labour changed leader, and the next general election does not need to be held until 2029.
The same poll would still give Labour a Commons majority
The most important number for Labour may not be its six-point advantage over Reform but what the result could mean under Britain’s first-past-the-post electoral system.
Electoral Calculus modelling cited by The Independent suggests voting shares matching the latest Opinium poll could give Labour approximately 336 MPs, with the Conservatives on 114 and Reform on 105.
That would leave Labour with an overall Commons majority despite receiving only 29 per cent of the national vote.
It would also put the Conservatives narrowly ahead of Reform in seats despite trailing Farage’s party by three percentage points nationally, illustrating again how geographical distribution can matter as much as overall vote share under first-past-the-post.
For Badenoch, however, reaching 20 per cent represents a clear improvement after the Conservatives were stuck on 17 per cent in each of Opinium’s previous two surveys. The party had also been on 17 per cent immediately before Labour conference, leaving it well behind both Labour and Reform.
The latest numbers leave all three major parties with something to point to. Labour remains first and has widened its advantage over Farage, Reform is still ahead of the Conservatives, and Badenoch has finally produced a noticeable polling bounce of her own.
Leave a Reply