Reform UK: 25 percent. Labour: 18. That seven-point gap, from YouGov’s final pre-election poll, is the context in which Britain votes today.

Polls opened at 7am across England, Scotland, and Wales in what amounts to the first nationwide verdict on Keir Starmer’s premiership. Roughly 5,000 council seats are contested in England, alongside all 129 seats in the Scottish Parliament and 96 in the newly expanded Welsh Senedd. Results will arrive from overnight Thursday through Friday.

The defection is bidirectional. Pollster Robert Hayward projects Labour could lose approximately 1,850 of the 2,550 seats it is defending. Nigel Farage’s Reform UK is expected to seize 1,550 seats from both Labour and the Conservatives, predominantly in white, working-class areas. Meanwhile, the Green Party, led by Zack Polanski, is poised to capture disaffected left-wing voters in urban centres — with realistic shots at taking councils including Hackney in London.

Wales may prove the cruelest result. Labour faces losing control of the devolved government in Cardiff for the first time since 1999, with Plaid Cymru’s Rhun ap Iorwerth expected to become first minister. In Scotland, YouGov projects Reform could push Labour into third place behind the Scottish National Party.

Starmer urged voters Wednesday to choose “unity or division,” framing the contest as “progress versus the politics of anger.” He now ranks among the most unpopular prime ministers in modern polling history, hampered by a stalled economy and a scandal involving sacked US envoy Peter Mandelson.

The Times reports that backbench Labour MPs are preparing a letter calling on Starmer to set a departure date — echoing a similar round-robin letter by Labour MPs calling on Tony Blair to step down in September 2006. Health Secretary Wes Streeting, former deputy prime minister Angela Rayner, and Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham are all rumoured as potential challengers.

Today’s results will not remove Starmer from Downing Street. But they may determine whether his own party obliges.

Sources