The threat to the Tories is now existential as YouGov poll shows they have been overtaken by Reform UK - while the SNP enjoy a double-digit lead in the Scottish subsample

*puts on Canadian accent*

It's another *terrrrr*-ible morning for the Conservative Party.

Although even that old joke (which I've been doing since circa-2009) doesn't seem to quite capture the gravity of the situation anymore, because when you have a credible pollster like YouGov showing that the Tories are no longer the leading right-wing force, the threat to the party is clearly existential in nature.  The first-past-the-post voting system allows very little scope for pluralism on any ideological pole.

GB-wide voting intentions (YouGov, 12th-13th January 2025):

Labour 26%
Reform UK 25%
Conservatives 22%
Liberal Democrats 14%
Greens 8%
SNP 3%
Plaid Cymru 1%

Scottish subsample: SNP 33%, Labour 23%, Reform UK 18%, Conservatives 11%, Liberal Democrats 8%, Greens 7%

When I sat down to write this blogpost, it suddenly occurred to me it's been aaaaaaages since I last did my customary spiel about YouGov's Scottish subsamples being of more interest than those from other firms (because they seem to be correctly structured and weighted).  It turns out there's a straightforward reason for it being so long - this is the first YouGov voting intention poll since the general election six months ago. That seems incredible when you bear in mind that there was a time when YouGov used to conduct a poll every single day (funded by the Sun newspaper, if I recall).

So although it's technically the case that YouGov have just joined Deltapoll, Opinium and More In Common in showing Reform on a new post-rebrand high watermark, that fact has to be treated with caution because it's impossible to know for sure how Reform would have been faring in YouGov polls towards the end of last year.

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