Burnham could beat Farage in a general election, new poll suggests
New polling shows Andy Burnham has a better chance of winning the general election against Nigel Farage’s Reform UK party than Keir Starmer.
More in Common (MIC) pollsters found the Greater Manchester mayor trails the Reform UK leader by 14 percentage points in head-to-head polls.
The findings will give a boost to Mr Burnham’s supporters who argue he should replace Sir Keir to save Britain from Mr Farage’s premiership.
But the MIC also warned that a potentially “dangerous” Brexit debate within the Labor Party could cost Mr Burnham the chance of winning the Makerfield by-election, in which he was chosen as Labour’s candidate, and with it the chance to challenge Sir Keir for the keys to No 10.
To have a chance at the Labor leadership, Mr Burnham must first win the parliamentary seat occupied by Britain, which voted to leave the European Union in 2016 and is another prominent Brexit Reform supporter.
Labor has changed its election decision, firing the starting gun for a contest likely to be held on 18 June.
In a briefing on this month’s election results, More in Common’s Luke Tryl said Mr Burnham would beat Mr Farage by 14 percentage points in a head-to-head contest, but “not many people know”.
The Greater Manchester mayor also fared nearly 10 points better against Mr Farage than Sir Keir.
But Mr Tryl warned: “It’s an assumption. The thing to always remember is that people do better when they go outside Westminster (as Mr Burnham did in Manchester). But against Farage he outperforms the prime minister by about 10 points.”
The head-to-head poll also does not reveal how voters would vote in a possible general election, where they would be judged on their party’s record and manifesto. But this is likely to be taken by Mr Burnham’s supporters as evidence that he will have a better chance of defeating Mr Farage and Reform UK than Sir Keir.
But Mr Tryl suggested Labour’s internal battle over rejoining the EU risked costing Mr Burnham his hopes of returning to parliament.
He said Makerfield’s Leave vote in 2016 made it a “key Reform objective” and a seat “tailored” for Mr Farage’s party. But he added that a “Burnham bounce” based on his personal popularity was worth an estimated 20 points in the polls, making him the “narrow” favorite to win the constituency next month.
But he stressed the importance of what the current row within Labor meant, adding that there remained a “big question about Brexit”. “If looking at rejoining (by voters in Makerfield) is taken as a sign that people, particularly at Westminster and in the Labor Party, have decided to learn the lessons of the 2016 election… that is more dangerous,” he said.
He also said that after the local elections Reform “has a claim to be the only truly national party” and that there was an argument that Labor and the Conservatives were “increasingly becoming regional parties”.
