Reform UK has dropped to third place in the UK Fact Check poll tracker, with its average share falling for a second successive update to 21.7% against the Conservatives' 21.9%, while Labour's lead over the second-placed party has widened to 6.2 points.
The gap of 0.2 points between Reform and the Conservatives is well within the margin of error and does not establish a settled change of order. The direction of travel is clearer: Reform's average has fallen from 22.9% in the snapshot to 12 October to 22.3% on 22 October and now to 21.7%, while Labour's lead over second place has grown from 4.9 points a week ago.
The tracker averages the latest 10 published polls, with fieldwork ending 23 October. It puts Labour on 28.1%, the Conservatives on 21.9%, Reform on 21.7%, the Liberal Democrats on 9.7%, the Greens on 9.2% and Restore Britain on 2.7%. In the tracker's snapshot of polls with fieldwork ending by 12 October, Labour stood at 27.8%, Reform at 22.9% and the Conservatives at 20.3%.
The seat projection has also flipped. On the tracker's proportional allocation, which is not a forecast, Labour would take 190 seats, the Conservatives 148 and Reform 146, with the Liberal Democrats on 66 and the Greens on 62. On 22 October Reform led the Conservatives by one seat, 148 to 147. Labour remains well short of the 326 needed for a majority.
Three polls published since Thursday have moved the average. The largest shift comes from Ipsos, whose poll with fieldwork from 15 to 22 October puts Labour on 32%, up five on September, the Conservatives on 24%, up three, and Reform on 20%, down three. Ipsos says it is the largest Labour lead and the first Conservative second place it has recorded since June 2025. Labour's 32% is the highest share for the party in any poll on the tracker in 90 days.
Ipsos's data on vote flows points to movement on the right. It says Reform is losing 15% of its 2024 voters to the Conservatives, against 6% a month earlier, while the Conservatives are losing 16% of their 2024 voters to Reform, down from 22%.
Keiran Pedley, director of politics at Ipsos in the UK, said: "Whilst the headline figures do show a striking change, they confirm a pattern we have been seeing in the underlying data for some time. The Labour Party under Andy Burnham is resurgent, consolidating voters on the left behind them. On the right, the tectonic plates have been shifting recently and now this is reflected in the Conservatives – not Reform UK – being in a clear second place. However, we should be mindful against overreacting to one poll."
Find Out Now, polling 2,381 adults in Great Britain on 21 and 22 October, has Labour on 26%, the Conservatives on 21% and Reform on 20%, down two on its 14 October survey. The pollster said in its blog: "The Reform vote share has fallen to the lowest level since the start of our voting intention tracker."
Opinium's poll for The Observer, with fieldwork from 21 to 23 October, still places Reform second, on 22% to the Conservatives' 20%, with Labour on 30%. Reform's 22% is its lowest share in Opinium's polling on the tracker.
Sunder Katwala, director of the think tank British Future, wrote on Bluesky that "The Cons & Reform have been trading 2nd place, usually within margin of error."
A Conservative spokesperson, quoted by LBC, said the next election was becoming a choice between higher taxes under Mr Burnham and a low-tax vision under Kemi Badenoch.
All of the polls in the tracker closed before Wednesday's Budget, the first from Chancellor John Healey since Andy Burnham became Prime Minister in July. The next update will be the first in which any reaction to the Budget can register.
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