What was claimed
A new poll suggests there is just one point between Labour and Reform UK in Gorton and Denton.
Our verdict
This is missing important context. While the figures for Labour and Reform are correct, the bar chart accompanying this claim does not include the Green Party, which was level with Labour in the poll in question. The results for all three parties were within the poll’s margin of error.
Labour has shared a bar chart alongside claims that a “new poll suggests there is just one point between Labour and Reform UK in Gorton and Denton”.
While it’s true that a poll published by Opinium Research just two days before tomorrow’s by-election shows Labour one percentage point ahead of Reform, the bar chart shared by Labour excludes the Green Party, which was at the same level as Labour in the poll.
This risks misleading voters by creating the impression that Labour are Reform’s closest challengers, when in reality the poll shows all three parties with very similar levels of support.
The poll was commissioned by the Byline Times and Forward Democracy, a group which encourages tactical voting to “keep right wing parties out of government”. According to the graphic shared by Opinium, it was based on 401 complete responses. After excluding people who said they didn’t know who they would vote for or definitely wouldn’t vote, that left 339 respondents who gave a voting intention for a specific party.
The Opinium graphic showed that of these 339 respondents, 28% said they’d vote for the Greens, 28% for Labour and 27% for Reform. (A further 6% said they would vote Conservative, 4% for the Liberal Democrats and 6% for ‘other’.)
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Among people who were “most likely to turn out”, 30% said they would vote for the Greens, with both Labour and Reform on 28%.
Opinium told Full Fact that the margin of error for a poll of this sample size should be about five percentage points. The results for all three leading parties sit well within this, meaning it’s possible that any of them could actually be ahead in this constituency.
Responding to the findings of the Opinium poll, as well as another poll published over the weekend, Professor Rob Ford, a political scientist at the University of Manchester, wrote that the differences between the parties were all “well within the margins of error in a constituency poll”, adding: “The race is, in short, a near-perfect three way tie.”
We’ve fact checked a number of claims during this by-election campaign—read our full summary of what we’ve seen here.
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