Dramatic poll from YouGov: Reform surge to all-time high, Labour slump to new post-election low, and the SNP have a 9-point lead over Reform in Scottish subsample

GB-wide voting intentions (YouGov, 5th-6th May 2025):

Reform UK 29% (+3)

Labour 22% (-1)

Conservatives 17% (-3)

Liberal Democrats 16% (+1)

Greens 10% (+1)

SNP 3% (-)

Plaid Cymru 1% (-)

Scottish subsample: SNP 35%, Reform UK 26%, Labour 15%, Liberal Democrats 9%, Conservatives 8%, Greens 6%

In some ways, this poll is strikingly similar to the one from More In Common that I covered this morning - both polls show Reform increasing by three points and reaching a new high watermark in the high 20s, and also their biggest ever lead over Labour.  However, there are also two key differences, the most important of which is the predicament YouGov are showing for the Conservatives.  Unlike in the More In Common poll, the Tories are far enough behind Reform that this is now starting to look like an existential threat for them - ie. the perception could start to grow that Reform have established themselves as the clear right-wing alternative to Labour, and the remaining Tory vote could largely move across to Reform as a result.  That's obviously a monumental danger to Labour as well in the first-past-the-vote system - but an opportunity for the Liberal Democrats, who are on the brink of overtaking the Tories.

The other key difference is that Labour have slumped to a new post-election low of 22% with YouGov - they've never previously been below 22%.

I know some people lack all sense of nuance and will look at the Scottish subsample and say "oh it's only a matter of time before Reform overtake the SNP in Scotland too", but that remains extremely unlikely.  The margin of error on any subsample is enormous, and everything we know about the differential between Reform support in Scotland and elsewhere in the UK suggests that they almost certainly don't have the support of 26% of Scottish voters right now - in fact it's probably still below 20%.  But what *is* looking like a consistent pattern in these Scottish subsamples is the dire showing for the Tories.  We could be moving into "Strange Death of Scottish Conservatism" territory - and it really would be a strange death, because although the possibility has been speculated about for decades, this is not the way we ever imagined it happening.