Fact check: YouGov poll shows figures for the North and the Midlands

(Updated, adding link to claim in par two and links section)

Reform UK leader Nigel Farage has claimed his party is polling ahead of the Conservatives in the North East, the North West, Yorkshire and the Humber, the East Midlands and the West Midlands.

Speaking on June 10, Mr Farage said: “If you take the YouGov poll of last week, where we were prompted and we came out at 17%.

“If you take out London, and you take out Scotland you get a very interesting picture.

“We are ahead of the Conservatives in the North East right now, we are ahead of the Conservatives in the North West right now, we are ahead of the Conservatives in Yorkshire and the Humber right now, we are ahead of the Conservatives in the East Midlands right now, we are ahead of the Conservatives in the West Midlands right now.”

Evaluation

YouGov’s regular poll does not break down by the regions that Mr Farage mentioned, it simply lumps them into either The North or The Midlands categories.

The YouGov MRP poll has data by constituency. But analysis of these figures shows that Reform does not appear to be ahead in any of the areas Mr Farage mentioned.

The facts

YouGov has been releasing two different types of polls in recent weeks. One is an MRP poll which gets more than 60,000 respondents and includes more granular data. The other is a more regular poll which surveys around 2,000 people.

Mr Farage was speaking on June 10. That means that when he mentions “last week” he could be referring to a poll from June 6 or one from June 4, or to the MRP from June 3.

It is the June 4 poll that puts Reform UK on 17% across the country. In that same poll, the Conservative Party scored 19%.

When broken down by region, in the Midlands the results show that Reform was ahead of the Conservatives in that poll, with 25% compared to 20%.

In the North, Reform polled 21% against the Conservatives’ 16%.

However this poll does not have a more granular breakdown which shows the results for the five areas that Mr Farage mentioned: The West Midlands, the East Midlands, the North East, the North West and Yorkshire and the Humber.

That means the poll does not support Mr Farage’s claim.

Meanwhile on June 3, YouGov released its first MRP of the campaign. The MRP is more granular and includes constituency-by-constituency results.

PA news agency analysis of the MRP poll looked at all constituencies in the five regions that Mr Farage mentioned.

That analysis found that the poll shows Reform was only ahead of the Conservatives in a few dozen of the more than 200 seats in the areas, and on average was behind significantly across Yorkshire and the Humber, the West Midlands, the East Midlands, the North West, or the North East.

The average of the percentage that the parties scored across all constituencies in these areas shows that the Conservatives polled 24%, while Reform polled 12%.

Reform was ahead of the Conservatives in 44 of the 256 constituencies across the five regions. The Conservatives were ahead in the remaining 212.

Reform was contacted, but did not explain what figures Mr Farage was referring to.

Nigel Farage’s claim (archived post and video)

YouGov – Using MRP for our voting intention polling (archived)

YouGov – Voting intention – All (archived)

YouGov – Voting intention – Midlands (archived)

YouGov – Voting intention – North (archived)

YouGov – First YouGov MRP of 2024 general election shows Labour on track to beat 1997 landslide (archived)

YouGov – Full results of June 3 MRP poll (archived, downloads as .xlxs file)