“We’d prefer to be in the lead. However, panic? Nah.”
This is one senior Reform UK source’s response to the ‘Burnham bounce’ which has seen Labour leapfrog Nigel Farage’s party to lead a national poll for the first time since March 2025.
It’s part of a refrain echoed across the upper echelons of Reform: Labour’s boost in the polls under new Prime Minister Andy Burnham was to be expected; there’s no need to panic; it won’t last.
Reform’s impressive polling streak came to an end on Monday when a survey by More in Common put Labour on 28 per cent (up four points) to Reform’s 24 per cent (down two).
The following day, Survation had Labour on 26 per cent (up one) and Reform on 24 per cent (down two). A YouGov poll put Labour and Reform neck-and-neck on 22 per cent – Labour’s highest figure with the company since last September – appeared to confirm a “crossover” had been achieved.
Despite Reform’s outwardly relaxed attitude to the apparent shift in public opinion, pollsters believe it could point towards something significant.
Louis O’Geran of More in Common, told The i Paper: “We’ve seen a big Burnham bounce… we’re seeing this real swing towards Labour and away from Reform.”
“If you look at the people who voted Labour in 2024, back in March only half of them were planning to vote Labour in an election tomorrow. That’s now risen to two thirds.”
Reform acknowledge that Burnham poses a more formidable challenge than Sir Keir Starmer ever did and sources inside the party are complimentary about the new Prime Minister’s ability to appeal to voters.
One senior party source said Burnham is basking in a “TikTok summer”. “He’s genial, he’s personable, he wears T-shirts, he does TikTok… he’s very good at what he’s doing right now”.
A Reform insider meanwhile conceded that the “quasi-populist policies” which Burnham unveiled in his first week – such as cutting bus fares and electricity bills – were “a lot better than things Starmer was coming up with”.
They added: “The other advantage that Burnham has got is that he is sort of recognisably human, which Starmer, with the best will in the world, was not.”
Reform have endured a turbulent few weeks amid questions over Farage’s finances (Photo: Dan Kitwood/Getty Images)Reformers strenuously insist they expected Labour to overtake them in the polls.
One Reform official said: “We knew as soon as Starmer announced he was stepping down Labour would go back above us for a short period. Quite frankly anything to the British public would have felt better than Starmer.”
However, the party line is that the Burnham bounce will soon “fizzle out” when he starts having to grapple with the economic challenges the country faces and splits in the Parliamentary Labour Party, especially over welfare.
The fate of Starmer – who saw his popularity collapse within weeks of entering No 10 – is brandished as evidence that Burnham will also succumb to political gravity before long.
While Reform politicians view Burnham as a vastly superior communicator to Starmer, they still think voters will begin to tire of his informal, social-media oriented style. “The schtick is going to wear thin very fast,” the senior source said.
As for how long it will take Reform to once again overtake Labour in the polls, the official was willing to stick a date on it: “I don’t think they’ll be leading by Christmas.”
Reform sources believe Burnham’s ‘TikTok summer’ will be followed by a fall in his popularity (Photo: Nigel French/PA Wire)O’Geran thinks it’s “really hard to tell” how durable Labour’s lead will be, although he believes the early data provides one “red flag” for Burnham in the form of a “credibility challenge”.
While there is strong support for the cost-of-living policies the Prime Minister has announced, there is scepticism about how he is going to deliver them. “When we ask people has Andy Burnham been clear about how he’s going to pay for it, only a third of people say that he’s been clear. Half say he’s been unclear.
“If there is a longevity risk for this Burnham boost, it’s going from a popular agenda that the public really back in principle to then getting into the kind of messy stuff about how you’re going to fund it.”
Farage’s Binface backlash
For all the apparent indifference to Labour’s polling surge, there is no escaping the fact that Reform have had a miserable couple of months.
Questions continue to dog Farage about his finances, while the police are also investigating donations relating to deputy leader Richard Tice and Treasury spokesman Robert Jenrick – all three deny any wrongdoing.
At the same time, Farage’s gambit of triggering a by-election in Clacton misfired when all the main parties declined to join the contest. It has left the Reform leader in the farcical position where his main opponent is the novelty candidate Count Binface.
While there remains an extreme reluctance in Reform circles to question Farage’s judgement – even in private – some figures in the party implicitly admit that the by-election has descended into a “silly season” sideshow which they’re keen to see the back of.
The Clacton by-election has descended into farce, with Farage facing Count Binface as his main opponent (Photo: Aaron Chown/PA Wire)The Reform insider said of the by-election: “It will be out of the way soon. We’re in silly season at the moment… by October, that’s when the real business of politics will start again.”
Those close to Farage continue to defend the move, although their rationale for the by-election has subtly shifted.
Originally, Farage wanted to trounce the main parties to cement his legitimacy before the conclusion of a standards investigation into the £5m “gift” he received from crypto billionaire Christopher Harborne.
Now, Reform sources talk about racking up so many votes on 13 August that Farage’s opponents abandon the idea of pursuing a second by-election once the standards probe is done. The party official predicted that Farage would be re-elected with 65 to 75 per cent of the vote. “People are then going to realise there is no way of actually getting rid of Nigel,” they said.
As for the financial questions, there is acknowledgement that it has hurt Reform, but party apparatchiks claim their polling has proven resilient.
The senior source said: “Despite everything, all this stuff, our polling rating has [only] dropped by a couple of points. There seems to be a real stickiness to 20 per cent or more.”
Reform plans to ‘start punching’
Reform’s plan is to go on the offensive. The official claimed a “huge grid” of media announcements has been prepared for the run-up to the party’s conference at the start of September.
While some commentators have said Reform look lethargic compared to the hyperactive campaigning of previous parliamentary recesses (last summer they held a crime campaign with weekly press conferences), insiders argue that any announcements in the last couple of weeks would have been lost in the noise accompanying the start of Burnham’s premiership.
“There was no point doing anything in the first two weeks,” the official said. “It’s all about timing. We’re keeping our powder dry.”
Reform plan to go on the offensive against Burnham in the coming weeks (Photo: Joe Giddens/PA Wire)After the recent torrid months, there is a belief that the party needs to be more assertive in taking the fight to Labour, with Jenrick’s accusation that Burnham is planning a “death tax” to pay for social care reform seen as a particularly promising line of attack.
The senior source said Reform had been like a “heavyweight boxer standing in the middle of the ring taking everyone’s punches”. “We’ve got to start punching… we’ve got to step up and make our case rather than constantly defend.”
At the same time, Reform is quietly preparing itself for a general election. Assessment interviews have been taking place with prospective parliamentary candidates, and Farage has been assembling the team who will oversee the manifesto, The i Paper understands.
But despite speculation about a snap election, Reform don’t think Burnham will call one. The Reform insider said: “There would be a raft load of Labour MPs who would lose seats, and secondly [Burnham] will probably be thinking he would not win an overall majority.
“Things are going to get tougher for him fairly quickly and I think that will take the shine off the bounce that he’s had so far. I’m entirely relaxed.”
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