Voting intention · rolling average
Labour, Reform UK and the Conservatives are separated by under five points. An average of published British Polling Council polls, as of 13 August 2026.
Source: PollCheck — 7-poll moving averagePhotograph: Peter McDermott / CC BY-SA 2.0
Terrorism threat level
Severe
An attack is highly likely
OfficialRussia pressure on the UK
45/100
Elevated
Our assessmentPM approval
+16
37% approve, 21% disapprove
OpiniumChannel crossings, 2026
15,242
43% lower than the same point in 2025
Home OfficeLabour lead over Reform
+1.8pts
General election within 1,097 days
Rolling averageNew to this?
Six parties matter in British politics right now. Broadly, the left favours more state spending and looser immigration rules; the right favours lower taxes and tighter ones. Tap any party to see what it actually says.
Green
Left
Left to eco-socialist.
Labour
Centre-left
Centre-left.
Lib Dems
Centre
Centre to centre-left.
Conservative
Centre-right
Centre-right to right.
Reform
Right
Right to populist right.
Restore
Far right
Far right.
Want the whole picture in one go? Read today’s briefing — about five minutes, both sides of every argument.
Daily briefing
Behind the average
Labour's 24% in YouGov's 9–10 August poll is its highest in that tracker since July 2025, and up eight points on the 16% low it recorded in May.
YouGov — Voting intention, 9–10 August 2026Opinium's 5 August poll had Labour unchanged on 27% with Reform UK up one to 25% and the Conservatives up one to 19%.
Opinium — Voting intention, 5 August 2026All other parties and independents account for 4.3% of the average. Movements of a point or two between polls are usually noise. How we handle polling
Every poll in the average
As of 13 August 2026. Each links to the pollster’s own write-up, so every figure here is checkable at source.
| Pollster | Fieldwork | Labour | Reform | Conservative | Green | Lib Dems | Restore |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Rolling average | 7-poll | 25.4 | 23.6 | 20.7 | 12.0 | 10.0 | 4.0 |
| YouGov | 9–10 August 2026 | 24 | 22 | 21 | 12 | 11 | — |
| Opinium | to 5 August 2026 | 27 | 25 | 19 | — | — | — |
| YouGov | 2–3 August 2026 | 22 | 23 | 19 | 13 | 12 | — |
An em dash means the pollster published no separate figure for that party.SourcePollCheck — 7-poll moving average (13 August 2026)
Tracker
Small boat arrivals, the asylum backlog and returns — the official figures, updated as the Home Office publishes them.
People arriving by small boat in 2026 so far
Official figure15,242
Provisional, as of 14 August 2026
Boats successfully crossing are down 49% on last year — a bigger fall than the fall in people, meaning the boats that do cross are more crowded.
Small boat arrivals by year
We show no 2025 small-boat total because published sources conflict: roughly 46,000 people were detected arriving by all unauthorised routes in 2025, of which small boats were about 89%, but that does not reconcile cleanly with the 2022 record of 45,774 small-boat arrivals. Rather than split the difference, we leave it blank.
Awaiting an initial asylum decision
48,758
−55% year on year
At the end of March 2026, down from 109,536 a year earlier as the Home Office cleared initial decisions faster.
SourceMigration Observatory — asylum accommodation in the UK (31 March 2026)
Housed in asylum hotels
20,885
−35% year on year
21% of the 98,000 people in asylum accommodation at the end of March 2026, down from 42% in hotels in March 2023.
SourceMigration Observatory — asylum accommodation in the UK (31 March 2026)
Asylum-related returns
11,631
+23% year on year
31% of all returns from the UK in 2026 — people removed or leaving after a refused claim.
SourceMigration Observatory — returns and removals (30 June 2026)
What counts as “irregular” arrival?
Arriving without prior permission — overwhelmingly by small boat across the Channel, plus smaller numbers detected at ports or arriving by air without adequate documents. In 2025 small boats were about 89% of all such detections.
Is claiming asylum illegal?
No. Claiming asylum is lawful under the Refugee Convention regardless of how someone entered, which is why official statistics say “irregular” rather than “illegal”. Entering without permission can be a separate offence, and whether it should be prosecuted is a live political argument.
Why do the numbers jump around so much?
Crossings are highly weather-dependent — a single calm week can produce more arrivals than a stormy month. Day-to-day figures are close to meaningless; the year-to-date comparison is the number worth watching.
What each party says it would do
Labour
Enforcement co-operation with France and faster asylum processing to cut the backlog and hotel use. Points to the 43% year-on-year fall as evidence the approach is working.
Reform
Treats crossings as the central issue in British politics and calls for sharply tougher deterrence and removals; argues falls are weather and French enforcement rather than government policy.
Conservative
Argues the fall does not go far enough and that a removals-based deterrent is needed, having pursued that approach in government to 2024.
Lib Dems
Emphasises safe and legal routes and faster decision-making, arguing that deterrence-first policy has repeatedly failed to reduce crossings.
Green
Opposes deterrence-based policy outright, favouring expanded safe routes and an end to hotel-based accommodation.
Restore
The furthest-reaching position of the six: large-scale deportation of people in the UK without permission, and a net-negative immigration target overall.
On the wording: the government’s own statistical term is “irregular migration”, because claiming asylum is lawful however someone arrived. Much of the press and several parties say “illegal immigration”. We use the official term in our own words and keep whichever term a source used. Figures are official Home Office and Commons Library statistics, reproduced as published. Daily small-boat data is provisional and revised. We publish no estimate, projection or figure of our own on this page.
National security
One official figure, set by the government, and one editorial assessment of our own. They are kept visually distinct on purpose, and never blended into a single number.
UK terrorism threat level
Official figureSevere
An attack is highly likely.
Set by the Joint Terrorism Analysis Centre (JTAC) and MI5. Scope: United Kingdom (England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland). We publish it exactly as issued and never adjust it.
Russia — pressure on the United Kingdom
Our assessment45/100
Elevated
Sustained grey-zone pressure across several domains.
Sustained, documented grey-zone pressure — survey and submarine activity around UK undersea cables, a high tempo of naval transits shadowed in UK waters, and continuing sabotage and cyber activity. It is not a warning of imminent attack: the Ukraine war still absorbs most Russian conventional capacity, and no UK national threat level has been raised on account of Russia.
What makes up the score
The war continues to absorb the bulk of Russian conventional capacity. Two short truces in 2026 — 32 hours at Orthodox Easter in April, and 9–11 May for Victory Day — were humanitarian pauses, not settlements. Talks remain stalled on territory and Western security guarantees. A negotiated end would free capacity and raise this score materially; that has not happened.
UK defence officials say Russian submarines have been deployed alongside the survey vessel Yantar — part of Russia's GUGI deep-sea unit — to map and potentially sabotage cables and pipelines near the UK, including the Britain–Ireland gas interconnector. The government has stood up an Undersea Infrastructure Security Oversight Board in response. Russia's embassy calls the claims "completely groundless".
The Royal Navy was activated 116 times during 2025–26 to shadow 61 Russian warships and 28 Russian merchant vessels inside the UK Exclusive Economic Zone, under Operation ADDISON — against a roughly 30% rise in Russian naval activity over two years. High tempo, but this is monitored, routine transit rather than escalation.
A continuing pattern of state-linked recruitment of proxies for arson and surveillance in the UK and across Europe, prosecuted through the courts. Serious and sustained, but disrupted repeatedly rather than escalating in scale.
Persistent Russian state and state-tolerated criminal activity against UK energy, water, health and telecoms networks. Steady-state pressure rather than a step change in the last quarter.
Ministers have moved to explicit public attribution — "We see you, we know what you're doing, and we will not shy away from robust action to protect this country" — and stood up new oversight machinery. But no formal national threat level has been raised on account of Russia, which is the strongest available signal that the UK does not assess an attack as imminent.
Each factor is scored 0–100 on its own evidence, then weighted; the weights sum to 100. Assessed 14 August 2026.
Read this carefully: This score is ukpoliticshub's own editorial assessment. It is not produced, endorsed or reviewed by the UK government, JTAC, MI5 or any intelligence agency. The only official figure on this page is the terrorism threat level above.
The Prime Minister
MP for Makerfield
In office since 20 July 2026
Mayor of Greater Manchester for nine years and a cabinet minister under Blair and Brown, Burnham became the UK's seventh Prime Minister in a decade after Keir Starmer resigned in June 2026. He returned to the Commons through the Makerfield by-election in order to be eligible, then took the Labour leadership unopposed on 379 nominations — more than 94% of the parliamentary party.
Full profileApproval of Burnham as Prime Minister
21% disapprove · net +16
The most positively rated political leader Opinium tested.
Opinium, 5–8 August 2026Highest of all party leaders tested in this poll.
Ipsos / PoliticsHome, 30 July – 4 August 2026The government
In office since 5 July 2024
Burnham's personal ratings are strong and he holds a wide lead on 'best Prime Minister', but the public remains divided on the government's overall direction and unconvinced it will deliver on immigration and the cost of living.
The Labour Party in fullMost capable of running the country
Andy Burnham
Nigel Farage
Kemi Badenoch
The papers
Fetching the front pages…
Who they are
Policies, leadership, where each sits on the spectrum, what they can credibly claim, and what is fairly held against them.
Andy Burnham
Leader and Prime Minister
The party of government since July 2024, and since 20 July 2026 led by Andy Burnham following Keir Starmer's resignation. Burnham inherited a party that had fallen to 16% in some polls in May 2026 and has recovered to the low-to-mid twenties, leading most published averages again.
411 seats won at the 2024 general election
Nigel Farage
Leader
Led by Nigel Farage, Reform UK topped national polls from early 2025 through much of 2026 and absorbed a run of senior Conservative defectors — Nadhim Zahawi, Robert Jenrick and Suella Braverman all crossed in January 2026. It has slipped behind Labour in the most recent averages.
5 at the 2024 general election, since increased by defections from the Conservatives
Kemi Badenoch
Leader of the Opposition
The Official Opposition, led by Kemi Badenoch since November 2024. The party suffered its worst general election defeat in 2024 and has since lost senior figures to Reform UK, running third in most 2026 averages while remaining within a few points of first.
121 seats won at the 2024 general election, reduced since by defections
Zack Polanski
Leader
The fastest-growing party in British politics by membership. Zack Polanski won the leadership in September 2025 on an eco-populist platform, and in February 2026 the Greens took Gorton and Denton — their first Westminster by-election win ever, in a seat where the party had never previously passed 10%.
5 — four elected in 2024 plus the Gorton and Denton by-election gain
Sir Ed Davey
Leader
Led by Sir Ed Davey, the Liberal Democrats won 72 seats in 2024, their strongest showing since the party was formed. Through 2026 they have made opposition to Nigel Farage the centre of their messaging, with Davey pledging to "stop Trump's America becoming Farage's Britain".
72 seats won at the 2024 general election — the party's best ever result
Rupert Lowe
Founder and Leader
Founded by Rupert Lowe after his departure from Reform UK, Restore Britain registered as a party in February 2026 and polls at around 4%. It is the newest of the six parties tracked here and the only one whose classification is itself contested: academics describe it as far-right and ethno-nationalist, and the party calls that a smear.
1 — Rupert Lowe
The calendar
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United Kingdom general election
15 August 2029 · latest possible
265days
Local elections
6 May 2027
265days
Northern Ireland Assembly election
6 May 2027 · expected
The daily despatch
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The papers
The main stories across the British press right now. Every masthead carries a fixed left–right rating so you can see who is telling you the story before you read it.
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