Five Parties, No Majority, and a Country That Can’t Agree on Anything

Reform UK would win 381 seats and a majority of 112 if Britain voted tomorrow. Labour would crash to 85 – its worst result since 1910. The Conservatives? Down to 70. Those numbers, from a More in Common MRP study in January, read like political fiction. But every major poll points the same way.

Britain has entered a five-party era, and nobody is quite sure how to govern in one.

As of mid-February 2026, the PollCheck 7-poll moving average shows Reform at 29.7%, Labour at 19.3%, Conservatives at 19.1%, Greens at 14.1%, and Liberal Democrats at 12.3%. All five parties are polling in double digits. That hasn’t happened before in the age of modern polling. And with first-past-the-post – a system built for two parties – the gap between votes and seats is getting wild.

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What Broke

The short answer: everything at once. Labour won a massive 411-seat majority in July 2024, but it did it on just 33.7% of the vote – the lowest share for any majority government in British history. That meant the landslide was wide but shallow. And it didn’t take long to drain.

By early 2025, Labour and Reform were neck and neck in polls. Then the gap opened. Reform pulled ahead in May 2025 and hasn’t looked back. The party grabbed its first by-election win in Runcorn and Helsby that same month – by six votes, but a win is a win. Conservative defections followed. And then the Epstein scandal hit, dragging Starmer’s personal ratings to historic lows.

Meanwhile, the Conservatives failed to pick up the pieces. Kemi Badenoch’s strategy of matching Reform on rhetoric hasn’t worked. Tory support has bounced around 18-21%, barely moving since the election. The party fell to fourth in local elections last May – behind Labour, Reform, and the Lib Dems.

On the left, the Greens surged after electing Zack Polanski as leader in September 2025. Among 18-24 year olds, the Greens now poll at 37%, making them the top choice for young voters by a wide margin. Labour’s own coalition has shattered: just 38% of people who voted Labour in 2024 still back the party, according to YouGov. The rest have scattered – 15% to the Greens, 9% to the Lib Dems, 8% to Reform, and 17% undecided.

📊 Key Stat: 68% of Britons agree that “British society is broken” – the highest level Ipsos has ever recorded, up from 58% in 2011. A majority of supporters from every single political party agree. (Source: Ipsos Political Monitor, January 2026)

What the Numbers Mean in Seats

This is where first-past-the-post turns strange. Reform polls at about 30%. But because its vote is spread across the country rather than concentrated in a few regions, small changes in share produce huge swings in seats. The Electoral Calculus MRP from January projected Reform winning 335 seats even after factoring in tactical voting. Without it, the number jumps to 398.

Labour, meanwhile, drops from 411 seats to as few as 85. Frontbenchers like Rachel Reeves, Yvette Cooper, and Ed Miliband are projected to lose their seats. The party would be reduced to a handful of urban strongholds – bits of London, Liverpool, and university cities.

The Conservatives sit at roughly 70-92 seats depending on the model. That’s lower than their already disastrous 2024 result. The Greens could pick up 9-15 seats, a huge jump from four.

In 2024, Labour and the Conservatives together pulled just 57.4% of all votes cast – the lowest combined share since universal suffrage began. In 2026, that number is heading toward 40%.

But Can Reform Actually Govern?

Here’s the pushback. Polling at 30% and governing are different things. Ipsos found that only 24% of Britons think Nigel Farage is ready to be Prime Minister. A bigger number – 58% – say Reform isn’t ready for government. Even among Reform’s own voters, the party’s appeal is more about rejection than endorsement: they want Labour and the Tories out more than they want Farage in.

The party also has a readiness problem. It has five MPs. No council leaders. No experience running a local authority, let alone a country. Its policy platform on economics has been called “sketchy” by analysts at Electoral Calculus, and both Reform and the Greens have made similar populist promises on Bank of England reform without clear funding plans.

Tactical voting could also change the picture entirely. At 60% tactical voting levels, More in Common’s model shows a rainbow coalition of left-wing parties becoming more likely than a Reform government. The question is whether voters – spread across five parties with very different views – can coordinate that well.

What Comes Next

Three dates matter. February 26 – the Gorton and Denton by-election, the first real ballot-box test of 2026. May 7 – local elections across England and the Scottish Parliament election, which could reshape party positioning. And beyond that, the next general election, which must happen by August 15, 2029.

Between now and then, anything can move. Reform’s support has plateaued slightly – down 3 points since November per Ipsos, though still well ahead. Labour has ticked up a few points. But the bigger picture hasn’t changed: Britain has five competitive parties and a voting system designed for two. Something has to give. The question is what – and when.

Sources: More in Common MRP January 2026,YouGov,PollCheck