If there were a general election tomorrow, who would form the next government? It sounds like a simple question if you have access to the latest polls. But when the latest YouGov poll, released on 28 October, shows Reform UK on 27%, Labour and the Conservatives tied on 17% each, the Greens on 16%, Liberal Democrats on 15%, and the SNP on 3%, it’s anything but.
It’s a striking poll for a few reasons, the old duopoly of Labour and the conservatives have a combined vote share of 34%, a massive collapse from 2017, when over 80 percent of votes went to those two parties (the highest combined vote share since 1970). The Greens have their highest poll share ever on 16% and four parties sit within three percentage points from each other.
We live in a multi-party Britain. But under Westminster’s First Past the Post voting system, it’s impossible to tell what Parliament would actually look like from this poll.
Yet voters are supposed to decide who to vote for based on polls like this. Without a fancy statistical model or a degree in psephology, you’d just be guessing.
The guessing game of First Past the Post
It shouldn’t take an expert to translate public opinion into seats. But the brutal truth is that in our system, votes don’t add up to representation, they get filtered, distorted and wasted along the way.
With Reform UK on just over a quarter of the vote, they will probably get the most MPs, but who knows if that means they will be in government alone? Who knows how many seats the other parties will get. That’s not stability. That’s chaos wrapped up as tradition.
Predictability starts with fairness
A few data scientists have tried to predict what this poll would mean. The clever guys at electionmaps.uk have done a seat projection which shows Reform UK on 324 seats – just under half of the 650 MPs and the Liberal Democrats as the official opposition – as the 5th most popular party.
| Party | YouGov Poll | Elections Maps Projection (MPs) |
|---|
| Reform UK | 27% | 49.8% (324) |
| Labour | 17% | 11.4% (74) |
| Conservative | 17% | 5.8% (38) |
| Green | 16% | 6.5% (42) |
| Liberal Democrats | 15% | 13.5% (88) |
| SNP | 3% | 7% (46) |
From just 3% of the vote UK wide, the SNP leapfrog both the Conservatives and Greens, who are each five times as popular.
We should be able to look at a poll and have a reasonable sense of how the country’s votes would translate into seats. Parties that gain votes should gain seats, while those that lose them should lose influence. In a proportional system, we could. Votes would count equally, and Parliament would mirror the people.
We’d have a politics built on collaboration, not confusion. On stability, not spin.
When voters move left, the system lurches right
How can we hold parties to account when the system doesn’t respond? Look at what’s happening to Labour now. The party is losing voters to its left, to the Greens, to smaller progressive parties, to those who want bolder climate action and more equal economics. In a healthy democracy, that would be a clear signal: the public wants a more progressive direction.
But under First Past the Post, those shifts don’t pull politics leftward, they tilt it the other way. Split votes on the left hand more seats to the right. The system punishes diversity of opinion and rewards tactical silence.
What really brings stability
Some say we need First Past the Post to create majority governments in order to bring stability. But recent history tells a different story.
After the 2019 election, the Conservatives won a big majority in Parliament, but not among voters. That mismatch between seats and support led to years of turmoil, three Prime Ministers, and a sense of drift that never really ended.
And since 2024, Labour’s turn in office has shown that a parliamentary landslide built on a minority of votes doesn’t deliver direction either. Without broad backing, governments struggle to lead with confidence or legitimacy, constantly worrying about the slim margins that brought them victory.
Supporters of the status quo point to events happening under First Past the Post and proclaim that only First Past the Post can save us from more of the same. But real stability doesn’t come from catapulting one party into power. It comes from a government that actually reflects the majority of people.
Time for proportional representation
Britain deserves an electoral system that treats voters with respect. One where the link between votes and power is clear, and where stability comes from shared purpose, not artificial majorities.
It’s time we stopped guessing. It’s time for Proportional Representation, so our politics can finally reflect the people.
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