Andy Burnham has a better chance than Keir Starmer of winning a general election against Nigel Farage’s Reform UK, pollsters suggests.
The Greater Manchester mayor beats the Reform UK leader in head-to-head polls by 14 percentage points, More in Common (MIC) found.
The findings will be a boost to Mr Burnham’s supporters, who argue he has to replace Sir Keir to save the UK from Mr Farage becoming prime minister.
But MIC also warned that a potentially “dangerous” Brexit row within Labour could cost Mr Burnham his chances of winning the Makerfield by-election, where he has been chosen as Labour’s candidate, and with it the chance to challenge Sir Keir for the keys to No 10.
In order to have a chance at the Labour leadership, Mr Burnham must first win the parliamentary seat, which voted to leave the European Union in 2016 and where the other frontrunner is the pro-Brexit Reform UK.
Labour has moved the writ for the election, firing the starting gun for a contest likely to be held on 18 June.
In a briefing on this month’s local election results, Luke Tryl from More in Common, said that in a straight head-to-head Mr Burnham would beat Mr Farage by 14 percentage points, albeit with “lots of don’t knows”.
The Greater Manchester mayor also performed about 10 points better than Sir Keir against Mr Farage, he said.
But Mr Tryl cautioned: “This is a hypothetical. One thing always to remember is (as Mr Burnham has done in Manchester) when people go outside of Westminster, they tend to do better. But he performs about 10 points better than the prime minister against Farage.”
A head-to-head poll does not capture how voters would vote in a potential general election where they would also be judged on their party’s record and manifesto. However, it is likely to be seized on by Mr Burnham’s supporters as evidence he would have more chance of beating Mr Farage and Reform UK than Sir Keir.
MIC argues that Labour is currently trailing Reform in the polls, but a “bounce” created by a new, more popular leader than Sir Keir would allow them to beat Reform.
Separately, a different More in Common poll found Mr Burnham would boost Labour’s support by eight percentage points – taking it above Reform UK – if he took charge of the party. That would lift Labour to 30 per cent overall vote share, ahead of Reform which has topped opinion polls since last autumn, on 27, with the Tories on 20, the survey of 2,599 people found.
However, Labour’s internal war over rejoining the EU risks costing Mr Burnham his hopes of returning to parliament, Mr Tryl suggested.
Makerfield’s Leave vote in 2016 makes it a “prime Reform target” and a seat “which is tailor-made” for Mr Farage’s party, he said. But, he added, a “Burnham bounce”, based on his personal popularity, was worth an estimated 20 points in the polls, making him the “narrow” favourite to win the constituency next month.
However, there remained a “big question about Brexit”, he added, as he emphasised the importance of what the current row within Labour signifies. “If looking at rejoin is taken as a sign (by voters in Makerfield) that people in Westminster and the Labour Party, in particular, have now decided to move on from the lessons of the 2016 vote… that is more dangerous,” he said.
He also said that after the local elections, Reform “have a claim to be the only truly national party” and there is an argument that Labour and the Tories are “increasingly becoming regional parties”.