‘Burnham bounce’ takes Labour top of polls as party set for landslide victory in Manchester

The “Burnham bounce” saw Labor take the lead in three national polls; Days before the new prime minister crushes Reformation England in the first big test of his premiership.

A Survation poll published on Tuesday morning shows Labor in first place on 26 per cent, up one point, while Nigel Farage’s party follows on 24 per cent, down two points.

This follows More Partners, published on Monday, which gave Labor a 28 per cent lead compared to Reform’s 24 per cent. Both parties received 22 percent of the votes in YouGov’s poll on Monday.

The findings show that Reform’s poll dominance, which has led to more than 300 consecutive polls since April 2025, has come to a shattering end as Mr Farage’s hopes of becoming prime minister appear to evaporate after Labour’s change of leader.

In another blow to Reformation, Labor is eyeing a landslide victory in the Manchester mayoral by-election, called after Mr Burnham resigned from his post to pave the way for a return to Westminster.

Leading pollster Lord Hayward said: Independent He said the polls were “changing the discourse of British politics”.

He said: “There is no doubt there is a bounce-back in Burnham and it has happened quicker than most of us expected.

“Part of it is Andy Burnham himself, his policies and his communications, and part of it is Keir Starmer not being there anymore.

“This has coincided with a marked decline in support for Reformation. It has real problems.”

Lord Hayward stated that the Conservative Party was in third place in the polls, but they closed the gap on Reform, and Survation increased Kemi Badenoch’s party by two points to 21 percent.

He said: “We are no longer talking about Reform being the government; in fact there is an open question as to whether they are the natural party of the right.”

Polling guru Professor Sir John Curtice said polls showed Starmer’s “return” was worth two points for Labor when Sir Keir announced he was resigning, while Mr Burnham added a further four points in his first week as Prime Minister, giving Labor a six-point jump.

But he warned: “This is normal. The only new prime minister who did not rise in the polls was Liz Truss. Gordon Brown got seven points when he replaced Tony Blair, Theresa May got four points when he replaced David Cameron, Boris Johnson got six points when he replaced May and Rishi Sunak got four points when he replaced Johnson.”

“The question for Andy Burnham is how long will this last and only time will tell.”

He said Labor was still “head to neck” with Reform, but added: “Labour has certainly been given a second chance.”

Mr Farage is currently deadlocked in a by-election in Clacton after resigning his seat to trigger the vote. An investigation into crypto billionaire Christopher Harbourne’s £5 million donation is also hanging over his head, as is an investigation into gifts and support he received from convicted money launderer George Cottrell.

Prof Curtice noted that Reform had fallen an average of three points in the polls since Mr Farage called a by-election in Clacton on July 6.

He also noted that the Conservative Party had reached an average of 20 per cent of votes in a year for the first time, describing it as a “mini revival”.

He continued: “Most of the Reform votes came from the Conservatives, which means the Conservatives took the votes from the Reform.”

Lord Hayward also said Mr Burnham had “made good use of August” with a series of announcements and social media videos highlighting Labor, “just like Nigel Farage did last year”.

“By contrast, Reformation does not appear to be able to do anything to halt their decline,” he added.

Labour’s Greater Manchester mayoral candidate Bev Craig won 39 per cent of the vote on Thursday, while Reform is expected to get around 19 per cent, according to More in Common’s poll. The Greens are currently in third place with 14 per cent of the vote, while the Conservatives are in third place with 12 per cent of the vote.

According to the poll, Labor will take around two-thirds of the anti-Reform vote in the next runoff election.

When the contest began Reform were narrow favorites after local elections showed they had the highest level of support in Greater Manchester.

In the local election results held in the region on May 7, Reform received 30.8 percent of the votes, Labor Party 23.6 percent, Greens 19 percent and Conservatives 10.4 percent.

A Reform spokesman insisted the party was “calm” about the change in vote.

The spokesman said: “We were expecting the Labor Party to come out on top of us, we are calm about it. Let’s see where everyone is by December.”

In a note on how things might change, the spokesman added: “Two years ago Keir Starmer was flying high in the polls, there were comments talking about him being a sex symbol and ‘the grown-ups were at it again’.”

Mr Burnham, meanwhile, said he would not “get carried away” but was happy to “connect with people” after a poll gave Labor its first lead in more than a year.

The Prime Minister told reporters during his visit to Portsmouth: “I’m not going to get carried away by any surveys. I’m happy to have made a start where I hope I’ve been able to connect with people.”

“And I talk a lot about getting Britain to believe again and regain hope, and I won’t apologize for that. I think we need to have a little more spring in our step.”