New polls shows Farage elected Prime Minister if elections held today
New polling by YouGov shows Reform UK leader Nigel Farage as the favourite for Prime Minister if the elections were held today (26 September 2025).
The latest YouGov MRP survey, drawn from a sample of 13,000 respondents over the past three weeks, indicates that if an election were held tomorrow it would likely result in a hung parliament.
Reform UK is projected to secure 311 out of 650 seats – just 15 short of the 326 needed for an outright majority.
However, when factoring in the Speaker and Sinn Féin’s abstentionist MPs, the figures suggest that no party other than Farage’s would realistically be able to command the backing of the most MPs, putting him in a position to become Prime Minister.
The vast majority of the additional Reform UK gains have come at the expense of Labour, who is now expected to win just 144 seats if an election were happening right now. That’s a drop of 34 seats from June’s predictions, and a loss of 267 relative to the 2024 election result.
The remaining parties are largely unchanged since June. The results put the Conservatives at 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 are down one on 17%, the Liberal Democrats are static on 15%, and the Greens are on 11%.
A Labour 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).
Immigration a hot issue
Farage was in the news again this week after he unveiled plans to force all migrants with permanent residency to reapply for visas under stricter criteria, including a higher salary requirement and a better standard of English.
This will include plans to eject hundreds of thousands of legal migrants in an unprecedented reversal of Britain’s relaxed border rules.
Farage also confirmed that Reform plans to abolish indefinite leave to remain (ILR) entirely within 100 days of a Reform government winning office, forcing economic migrants to apply for visas with stricter conditions.
