The Green Party is now neck and neck with Labour, a new poll has shown, as the party climbs in the polls following the election of Zack Polanski – but both are lagging behind Reform UK.
A new poll, conducted by FindOutNow, put Nigel Farage’s party on 32 points, a fall of two points since this time last month. The Conservatives are on 16 points, having seen no change since last month.
Following closely behind is both Labour and the Greens, with Labour having seen its approval rating fall by one point, while the Greens have surged by three points in Mr Polanski’s first month as the party’s leader.
It comes weeks after Mr Polanski told The Independent he has had multiple conversations with Labour MPs about defecting to his party as they become increasingly unhappy with the direction of the government.
He said the number of Labour MPs he has spoken to who are dissatisfied with the party was in “double figures”, adding that the Greens would “absolutely” welcome disillusioned MPs, as long as they share the party’s values.
The poll, which spoke to 2,705 adults on October 15, put the Liberal Democrats on 12 points, one point lower than this time last month.
The disastrous polling for Labour comes amid growing questions over Sir Keir Starmer’s leadership of the party, with voters increasingly feeling that he has so far failed to get a grip on the problems facing the country.
While the prime minister was seen to have given a strong performance at his party’s conference in September, taking the fight to Reform UK and accusing Nigel Farage of pursuing divisive and racist policies, it appears to have done little to bump up his standing in the polls.
Kemi Badenoch was also seen to have given a strong performance at her party’s conference after using her main stage speech to announce plans to abolish stamp duty for primary residences – but like Sir Keir, has seen no boost in the polls.
Mr Polanski, who was elected as Green Party leader in a landslide victory in September, has vowed to impose a wealth tax on the richest 1 per cent, an end to arms sales and intelligence sharing with Israel and public ownership of Britain’s utilities and public services.
Responding to the polling, he said: “When I was elected, I said we weren’t here to be disappointed in Labour, we’re here to replace them. And I meant it.
“Our membership is surging – already over 115,000, up 70 per cent from when I was elected last month.
“We’re about to overtake the Conservatives in membership size and watch this space, we are about to overtake Labour in the polls. British politics is changing, Greens are giving Britain hope again.”
Reform’s strong performance comes just weeks after a major seat-by-seat poll put Mr Farage on course to be Britain’s next prime minister, showing his party is close to having enough support to form a majority government if an election were held today.
The multi-level regression and post-stratification poll (MRP), which is the second such poll conducted by YouGov since the election, suggested Reform would increase its MPs from just five to 311, making it the largest party in a hung parliament and just 15 seats short of the 326 needed for an outright majority.
And it showed Labour would lose 267 of the seats it won in 2024, putting the party on just 144 MPs. This is down from the 178 MPs YouGov predicted they would win in their last MRP poll.
