Poll Watch: YouGov, 18th June
Pollster: YouGov
Sample size: 2,25
Fieldwork dates: 15th - 16th June 2025
Source
Key points
A return to total SNP dominance in Scotland.
Older voters are leaving the Conservative - in both directions.
Only a Reform-Tory coalition would lead to a majority in the House.
A flurry of developments in the last week has meant that the polling picture has shifted - but not as much as some might have liked. We’ve had Zia Yusuf leave and re-join Reform, the government’s Spending Review alongside a purported u-turn on winter fuel payments, and, while not much seems to have come from CCHQ, there has at least been an impressive bit of guerrilla campaigning from Robert Jenrick on fare-dodging.
But the dial has only quivered, and not moved by much. However, as I’ll explain below, the placid national picture is obscuring some extremely important regional changes.
Meanwhile, taking Electoral Calculus’s model, we see a parliament that would still be dominated by Reform, despite a 2% fall since the last YouGov poll:
The Conservatives really need to try and turn things around if they want to survive as an electoral force. As it stands, every poll that puts them below 20% basically admits that they would become a parliamentary footnote. This poll especially is damning, putting them only at 30 seats - the same as the SNP (though for other reasons, this poll would actually produce more SNP seats, so the Tories would more likely be in fifth place).
If this parliamentary arithmetic actually emerged, a Reform-Tory coalition would be the only viable path to a governing majority - there is no way either the Liberal Democrats or the SNP would consider joining with Farage. Besides, the Tories are a party built to take power, and so they would probably hold their nose and join up with Reform. It might be their only option.
The hidden gem of this poll is a total SNP dominance in Scotland. It’s been a while since the SNP returned to over 40% in the polls, and their share is only just less than the Conservatives, Labour and Reform combined.
Reform are still cruising to become the largest party in Wales, which would certainly be seismic, breaking a Labour-Plaid Cymru hold over Welsh politics that has existed for as long as I can remember. Down in England, the regional trends have become fairly consistent, and will make for an interesting electoral map, should they materialise: Reform is dominating the Midlands, where they are 9% ahead of Labour, while the Conservatives have slipped to third; likewise, Reform have a tenuous but clear lead in the North; meanwhile Labour have a clear hold over London.
The Greens seem to have a wide spread of support, but YouGov aggregates regions, rather than breaking them down to areas like East or West Midlands, obscuring granular trends.
Trends across age groups seem consistent and clear, with the right-leaning parties performing better amongst older voters, while the opposite is true for left-leaning parties and the younger voters. The Lib Dems have a consistent level of support across all age groups, which is to be expected.
One (very minor) point to draw out is that, amongst 50-64 year olds, Labour are ahead of the Conservatives by 1%. As I say, this is minor, but usually this age range is solidly-Tory, so the wider trend it indicates is a waning of loyalty in this age group. Of course, Reform are a full 11% ahead of the Conservatives, so that’s likely where this is coming from, but it highlights the danger for the Tories.
Reform’s lead amongst women has returned, but not significantly - they are still only 2% ahead of the Conservatives here. This fieldwork was taken over the weekend, when there were rumours (now confirmed) of a grooming gang inquiry; while Reform have not led the charge on this issue, the association between Reform’s opposition to mass migration, and the opacity over the issue’s role in the grooming gangs scandal, has likely played a role in drawing women to the party.
But an interesting trend is that the ‘major parties’ (Conservatives, Reform, Labour) perform better with men than with women - and by quite a margin - while the opposite is true for the smaller parties (Liberal Democrats, Greens). It paints an interesting picture of who is drifting to which party.
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