Sunday Polling Update.

Labour remain the largest party by a wide margin, but the real story this week is the widening gap between how people say they’ll vote and how the seats would actually fall.

The Observer published a new Westminster voting intention poll from Opinium on Sunday, fieldwork 30 September to 2 October, sampling 1,552 GB adults. It has Labour out in front on 30%, Reform UK five points back on 25%, and the Conservatives a distant third on 17%. The Greens, on 11%, have now moved ahead of the Liberal Democrats on 9%. No change-on-previous-poll figures were published alongside this release, so we can’t say with precision how much movement there’s been since Opinium’s last outing, but the rank order itself, Labour comfortably ahead, Reform a clear second, the Tories well adrift, is consistent with where most other pollsters have had the race over the past fortnight.

Seats tell a different story. UK Polling Report’s live seat model (it calls itself “The Race to 326”, built on its UKPR Uniform methodology) currently has Labour as clear largest party on 261 seats, 65 short of the 326 needed for a majority on their own. That’s the headline. The detail worth sitting with is further down the table: the Conservatives have moved back ahead of Reform in seats, 122 to 98, even though Reform are still comfortably ahead of the Tories in the vote-share poll above. That’s not a contradiction. It’s a reminder that where your vote is matters as much as how much of it you get, and that Reform’s support looks to be spread less efficiently across the seats that would actually change hands than the Conservatives’ is. Whether that holds as a genuine shift in the model or proves to be noise in one update is the thing to watch over the next few weeks.

Still a long way from an election, and still a long way from a majority for anyone. But a seat model where the Tories are out-performing their own poll numbers relative to Reform is worth keeping an eye on.

Sources:

• The Observer / Opinium, Westminster voting intention poll, fieldwork 30 September – 2 October 2026, sample 1,552 GB adults. Accessed 4 October 2026.
• UK Polling Report, “The Race to 326” live seat model (UKPR Uniform methodology), live model update generated 1 October 2026, ukpollingreport (accessed 4 October 2026).
• Methodology note: UK Polling Report’s seat-projection trend chart (same page) was used to read the SNP, Green and Other seat totals referenced above, as these were not legible in the model’s primary seat bar.