Reform would win most seats in a general election, new poll says

Reform to come out on top in the next general election according to recent poll

Meanwhile, the polling suggests that support for Conservatives and Labour collapsed to less than half the national vote.

YouGov's analysts have revealed their first Multilevel Regression and Post-stratification (MRP) poll since the last general election. The research isn't a forecast, but more an estimate of the next election's outcome in 2029.

YouGov's polling is said to be more in-depth than standard polling, where people simply get asked who they'll vote for.

The research links voters and characteristics to help with its projection.

Based on the research of 11,500 people, if a general election were to take place tomorrow, Nigel Farage's Reform UK would win 271 seats.

Labour would take home 178 seats, which is less than half of the 411 it won last year.

The Tories would finish fourth place, behind the Liberal Democrats, with just 46 Conservative MPs.

The Liberal Democrats would gain nine extra seats to build a Commons caucus of 81 MPs, while the SNP would again be the largest party in Scotland.

The Green Party and Plaid Cymru would both gain three seats each, resulting in both of them holding seven slots in parliament.

If YouGov's poll were to become reality, it would mean a coalition government would be needed, due to the fact that no one party would have a majority.

However, it's unclear what such a coalition would look like. If Reform and the Conservatives would team up, they would still only have 317 seats, 7 short of the 325 needed.

YouGov said: "Reform's meteoric rise to becoming comfortably the largest party in a hung parliament is driven by impressive performances right across the country - including in Scotland," per Sky News.

The two major political parties of the last century would have 224 seats combined, fewer than Reform is set to take by itself.

Labour and the Conservatives' combined support would drop from 59% last year to just 41%.

"That a clear majority would now vote for someone other than the two established main parties of British politics is a striking marker of just how far the fragmentation of the voting public has gone over the past decade," according to YouGov.

It added: "According to our data and methods, 26% of voters would opt for Reform UK, 23% for Labour, 18% for the Conservatives, 15% the Liberal Democrats, 11% the Greens, 3% the SNP, 1% Plaid, and 2% for other parties and independent candidates."

The research shows Reform coming out at the top of the polls in 99% of their simulations, with the rest having Labour at the top.

In approximately 9% of simulations, Reform and the Conservatives have enough seats combined to form a government, while in only "a tiny fraction" do the Lib Dems and Labour have enough seats to govern together.