A recent YouGov poll shows that the Green Party has overtaken Labour in voting intention, with 21% of voters saying they would back the Greens at the next general election. Reform UK remains ahead on 23%. This shift has sparked widespread debate about the changing political landscape in Britain. Despite being in government, Labour — along with the Conservatives — is no longer the favourite.
No party other than Labour or the Conservatives has formed a government (except the Liberal Democrats in the 2010–2015 coalition) in more than a century. Britain has long operated under a two-party system, yet many now believe this stranglehold is coming to an end.
Protest and tactical voting are rising as voters on both left and right lose faith in their traditional parties. The Muslim bloc vote, once overwhelmingly Labour (around 80% in 2019), suffered a sharp 12% drop in 2024. The recent by-election in Gorton and Denton illustrates this dramatically. What was once a safe Labour seat, where the Conservatives trailed, has become a Green Party gain. Hannah Spencer defeated Reform UK by just under 5,000 votes, while both Labour and the Conservatives were soundly beaten as voters registered their protest against the main parties.
The two main parties are struggling to hold the centre ground. Voters are increasingly drawn to parties that represent clearer, more divided values — values from which Labour and the Conservatives appear to be drifting. The relentless pace of mass immigration since Tony Blair relaxed controls in the early 2000s, and its acceleration under 14 years of Conservative government, has bred deep discontent and eroded trust in both parties. As of late 2025, immigration ranked as the biggest issue facing the UK, with 47% of voters citing it as a major concern — ahead of the NHS and the economy. This suggests that the centrist offerings of Labour and the Conservatives no longer satisfy the electorate. It helps explain the surge to Reform UK, where 97% of supporters express dissatisfaction with immigration levels.
Yet the two-party system is extraordinarily difficult to dislodge, largely because of first-past-the-post (FPTP). The system disadvantages smaller parties whose support is spread thinly across constituencies rather than concentrated enough to win seats. Reform UK learned this the hard way in 2024: despite outpolling the Liberal Democrats in votes, it secured 67 fewer seats. There is little prospect of reform; the 2011 Alternative Vote referendum was decisively rejected, suggesting voters prefer to preserve the current system.
Moreover, neither the Greens nor Reform UK is yet ready to govern. Both are still developing parties with evident flaws that limit their electoral appeal. As my grandfather recently pointed out in these pages, the right and left are now fragmented by too many variants: Your Party (which cannot even settle on a leader) splits the left, while Restore, Reclaim, and Advance UK divide the right. What are the chances that Nigel Farage, Rupert Lowe, Ben Habib and others will suddenly unite? Slim, at present — Farage has accused some of trying to “tear down” Reform rather than join it. Too many options and complications risk confusing voters and driving them back to their default choices.
The system is not failing; loyalty to the two main parties is simply eroding. The Conservatives disappointed their voters over 14 years, culminating in electoral carnage, while Labour has seen confidence plummet since taking office. As of early 2026, public satisfaction with Keir Starmer’s performance remains dismal, with positivity ratings in the low teens.
Reform UK and the Greens are, for now, reshaping issues that the main parties must address rather than replacing them outright. This is especially true on the right, where former Conservative MPs such as Suella Braverman and Robert Jenrick have defected to Reform, unhappy with the party’s softening on immigration and economic policy. Voters are following suit — but that does not guarantee they will stick with the insurgents at a general election. After all, 45% of Reform voters favour a merger with the Conservatives, hinting at potential cooperation. Farage himself has indicated he expects a deal with the Tories before the next election.
The Conservatives and Labour will adapt as the election nears and seek to win back their voters — signs of which are already emerging. Labour recently reclaimed a county council seat from Reform in a Durham by-election (Murton ward), where Julie Griffiths defeated the incumbent. The Conservatives, meanwhile, have begun announcing bolder policies: withdrawing from the ECHR, abolishing stamp duty, ending asylum access for certain groups, and further welfare reform — all moves to reclaim ground on the right.
The claim that Britain’s two-party system is dying, and that a new party will govern after the next election, remains premature. Voters are clearly disappointed with the main parties and are casting protest votes. That does not mean they will commit to the newcomers at a general election. Opinion polls at this stage should be taken with a pinch of salt. Every decade, Britain declares the death of the two-party system; every decade, it survives. We may have a multi-party system in parts of Britain, but not in Westminster, where the two-party structure remains deeply entrenched.All Over for the Two-Party System?
Jack Watson is a 17-year old currently studying at Wyke College in Hull. You can read his Substack about following Hull City FC here. Follow him on X here.
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As a perpetual ballot spoiler (not by choice but by lack of credible candidates in both local and national elections), I predict that the stupidity of the majority* will ensure that the two or three party stranglehold will resume and continue until such time, i.e. never, that TPTB recognise the need for ‘none of the above’ as a valid voting option and that something is badly wrong when the turnout is dwarfed by the stay at homes. I’m frankly increasingly beyond caring.
* evidenced by covid debacle responses
”A recent YouGov poll shows that the Green Party has overtaken Labour in voting intention”
That’s because nobody in their right mind would even countenance voting Labour now and there are very few left who intend to actually stick their X in the Labour box, including their pet muzzies.
The same could also be said that those not in their right minds will vote Green
The rest of us normies, fascists and far-right gammons will vote for one of any number of right wing parties unless they bite the bullet and get their act together in coalition.
A good article.
One point: “the 2011 Alternative Vote referendum was decisively rejected, suggesting voters prefer to preserve the current system.” Arguably not entirely true – many voters clearly did not understand AV and others of us consider it (along with DeHondt) to be one of the poorest forms of PR. It was a political sop thrown contemptuously to the electorate by the Cameron-Clegg regime and seen as such (Cameron’s later gamble with the EU Referendum did not pay off!).
Reform and Co badly need to work together and not endlessly bicker amongst themselves as UKIP did. The centre-right’s biggest failure outside of operations, policy and elections is its apparent inability to recapture from the left all those institutions lost over recent decades to globalism and progressivism.
I’m afraid I’m with Nathaniel on this – no matter what happens in local elections, no matter what “the polls” suggest, when it comes to a General Election, most people, sadly unthinking as they are, will take the view, “better the devil you know than the devil you don’t know”. We’ll thus (more likely than not, in my humble opinion) see a swing back to the Conservatives and we’ve then safely returned to the swings and roundabouts of heretofore, for the next five years, when Labour will possibly or probably (depending on…) return to office.
The idea that any new or untested (in governing) party would or should be elected, is a non-starter in my considered view. People in the UK are not really given to thinking outside the box, as the (rather silly) saying goes, but then I’m sort of instinctively opposed to new sayings – joking, sort of…
‘former Conservative MPs such as Suella Braverman and Robert Jenrick have defected to Reform, unhappy with the party’s softening on immigration and economic policy’. Disagree, particularly in the case of Jenrick, He defected because he didn’t get the leadership, and sees Kemi doing better, so he thinks Reform will give him a better job with more power. Unfortunately for him, he doesn’t know Farage as well as he thinks he does. To hear him say ‘I’m going nowhere’, while knocking lumps out of Zia Yusuf online, (and vice versa), only to find that he had been plotting with Farage for a year and lying his rear end off, makes me sick, as does hearing him viciously slag off his colleagues from a party he joined when he was 16. He deserved to get sacked, and I hope he enjoys his new position as Farage’s poodle. I was disappointed to hear Suella Braverman likewise savaging former colleagues – it’s as though Nigel hands them a script that they have to recite to ‘prove themselves’. Defect if you must, but do it with a bit of dignity and grace.
Nigel’s unnecessarily vicious vitriol and nasty tricks towards former Reform members, decent men like Ben Habib and Rupert Lowe, opened my eyes and put me off Reform. And whatever he says, it is still largely a one man band. I loathe Labour with a passion and will never forgive them for what they are doing – the barefaced lies, the hypocrisy, appearing to not know the difference between right and wrong, despising and gaslighting the country they are, ha ha, sworn to serve. The Greens are head cases and so is anybody who votes for them.
I want my politicians to be better than me. I want to be able to look up to them, to respect and trust them. For me personally, Kemi Badenoch is the only politician at the moment who fulfils my expectations. Not a popular choice I imagine, but I wish people would listen to her more and realise her value. She wasn’t in a position to do much about what happened in the past (not forgetting that Labour also had the infamous ’14 years’ to make a plan, and all they have done is make things so much worse), but she is now. What she says makes sense and IMO she is one of only a few decent politicians we have.
I don’t want politicians to be better than me, more expert in relevant things, more dedicated, more public spirited (than me) – yes please. BTW I also want them to be from the same culture as me and look like they could be a relative of mine by birth. Unfortunately this excludes far too many (especially Islamics and various non-indigenous types).