A frisson of excitement ran through Westminster this week.
After two opinion polls put Labour and the Conservatives in first and second place, the inevitable question followed: “Is two-party politics back?”
Just a year ago, the prospect of the next election being a straight shootout between the two traditional parties would have seemed fanciful.
Reform UK were still ahead with every pollster, while the Greens were continuing their resurgence under their new leader, Zack Polanski.
May’s local elections seemed to confirm that a new era of multi-party politics in the UK was here to stay.
Reform gained nearly 1,500 new councillors, while the Greens saw their town hall representation soar by more than 800 seats.
At the same time, Labour – who were still in the doldrums under the leadership of Keir Starmer – lost 1,498 councillors, and the Tories 563.
Since then, however, British politics has once again been turned on its head.
Labour’s decision to dump Keir Starmer and replace him with Andy Burnham has so far been vindicated, with the party enjoying the novelty of being led by someone that voters actually like.
At the same time, Reform have been hit by a series of scandals and controversies which have led to the party’s popularity plummeting.
Nigel Farage still awaits the result of the parliamentary standards commissioner’s investigation into his failure to declare a £5 million gift from crypto billionaire Christopher Harborne.
The Metropolitan Police is also investigating the outcome of an undercover Channel 4 documentary in which senior Reform officials appeared to be willing to break electoral law to get money from a foreign donor.
According to a poll of polls by Election Maps UK, Reform have slumped from 27.5% at the end of May to 22.7% now.
Over the same period, Labour’s own standings have soared from 19.6% to 27.7%. The last time they led Reform by 5 points was at the end of 2024.
The Greens, meanwhile, have fallen from their own peak of nearly 16% in April to just over 9% today, as Polanski’s leadership has faltered and the party has become embroiled in an anti-semitism row after passing a conference motion declaring that Zionism is racism.
As Farage and Polanski’s popularity has waned, Kemi Badenoch’s has continued to rise, and there are now signs that she is finally dragging the battered Tory brand with her.
But leading pollsters who spoke to HuffPost UK this week explained why it is too early to write off Reform and the Greens.
Luke Tryl, UK director of More in Common, said: “While the two-party system may not be dead and buried, it certainly remains in a weak state.
“An election held tomorrow would likely still produce the most fragmented results in history, and our latest poll suggests that no party would come close to a majority, and a coalition would be the most likely outcome.
“Trust in mainstream politics remains at a dire low. Unless the two major parties can reassure Britons that they are listening to their concerns, are trying to do something about them, and are actually capable of doing so, this will continue to be the case.”
Chris Hopkins, political research director at Survation, said “any talk of a return to two-party politics remains premature”.
“The improvement in the standing of Labour and the Conservatives remains muted, rarely combining for more than 50% of the vote in the latest round of opinion polls,” he said.
“This remains a far cry from recent general elections, especially 2017, where the Conservatives and Labour received a whopping 82% of the overall vote.
“Of course, things can still change very quickly in British politics so only a fool would completely rule out a return to two-party politics.
“But if an election were tomorrow, Reform and the Greens would represent significantly greater challenges in constituencies up and down the country for the main two parties than ever before.
“That, coupled with the national strength of the SNP in Scotland and Plaid Cymru in Wales, means that multi-party politics is unlikely to be going anywhere anytime soon.”
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Keiran Pedley of Ipsos UK said “the battle for hearts and minds on the right” was yet to be won by either the Tories or Reform, who remain strong in the north of England and the Midlands.
Farage’s party also has a huge election war chest, thanks to the £72m the party received last month from Christopher Harborne and his fellow crypto bilionaire, Ben Delo.
“As long as Nigel Farage is around it is hard to see them going anywhere and what we don’t know is whether Reform today are at a low ebb that they recover from, or if the Conservative momentum continues,” Pedley said.
With a difficult Budget less than two weeks away, Burnham and Labour’s current popularity may well prove to be short-lived if energy bills soar and the economy takes a turn for the even worse.
Badenoch, meanwhile, still faces an enormous challenge in trying to make the Tories competitive come the next election, give their hammering last time around.
As Pedley pointed out: “We can hardly declare a return to the two party system when five parties are polling in double digits and nationalist parties are in government in Scotland and Wales.”
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