Reform UK leader Nigel Farage (Image: Getty)

Restore Britain running in the Makerfield by-election is “good news” for Andy Burnham, Britain’s top pollster has said. Professor Sir John Curtice said Rupert Lowe’s right-wing party was making life “much more difficult” for Nigel Farage‘s Reform UK.

It comes as a new poll by Survation put Labour in the lead for the crunch ballot with 43% and Reform just behind on 40%, but Restore Britain was third with 7%.

Sir John said the by-election, which the Greater Manchester Mayor is using in a bid to return to Westminster to challenge the PM, is “on an absolute knife-edge”.

He told The Telegraph: “Reform has managed, evidently, from looking at the transfer numbers, to squeeze the Tory vote.

“But Restore Britain is intervening and making life much more difficult for Reform. On the one hand, so far as Burnham is concerned, the intervention of Restore Britain is definitely good news.

“On the other hand, it also shows that if Reform are able to squeeze this Restore vote – because they’ve lost one in eight of their 2024 voters to Restore – then, even if this poll is accurate, Reform could still overtake Burnham.”

John Curtice issues dire by-election warning to Nigel Farage

Nigel Farage may have secured another parliamentary victory in Clacton, but one of Britain’s best-known polling experts has warned that the by-election exposed a much more complicated electoral picture for Reform UK.

Sir John Curtice has repeatedly stressed that the political landscape facing Farage has changed dramatically since the Reform leader triggered the Clacton contest. The party remains a major force in British politics, but its national polling position has weakened from the levels recorded earlier in the year, while Labour has benefited from what has been described as a “Burnham bounce” following Andy Burnham’s arrival as prime minister.

The warning is particularly significant because Farage had hoped the Clacton contest would reinforce his position and demonstrate the continuing strength of Reform’s support.

Instead, Curtice has argued that the result needs to be interpreted alongside the wider national numbers.

Clacton was not a straightforward national test

Farage won the Clacton by-election, returning to the constituency he had previously represented.

The result gave Reform an important parliamentary victory, but the circumstances were highly unusual.

The contest was triggered after Farage decided to resign his seat amid political controversy. Several major parties chose not to contest the by-election, leaving Reform facing a field that included independent candidates and Count Binface.

That meant the result cannot simply be treated as an ordinary general-election contest.

Curtice had already warned before polling day that the unusual circumstances made comparisons with a conventional parliamentary election difficult. Nevertheless, he noted that turnout was relatively healthy for a modern by-election.

Around 44 per cent of eligible voters participated, according to analysis reported after the result. Curtice said that turnout was roughly 10 percentage points higher than the comparable David Davis by-election in 2008.

For Reform, that provided evidence that voters were willing to turn out even when many established parties had declined to compete.

But the national picture remains considerably more complicated.

Curtice’s wider warning

Curtice’s most consequential warning came in September, when he assessed what could happen if Andy Burnham decided to call an early general election.

The polling expert argued that Reform could still emerge as the largest party in the House of Commons even though its national support had fallen.

That may sound contradictory, but it reflects the UK’s electoral system.

Britain uses first-past-the-post voting. What matters is not simply the national percentage of votes but how those votes are distributed across constituencies.

Curtice pointed out that Reform’s support is geographically widespread.

That characteristic worked against the party in 2024 because it frequently finished second or third even where it secured substantial numbers of votes. But if Reform were to become the leading party in many constituencies, the same geographical spread could potentially translate into a large number of seats.

Curtice therefore warned that an early election would not necessarily allow Burnham to take advantage of Reform’s current polling difficulties.

His argument was not that Reform would definitely win.

Instead, he highlighted the uncertainty created by Britain’s electoral system.

Reform’s polling position has changed

The change in national polling is nevertheless important.

In the months before Burnham became prime minister, Reform was regularly polling at around the high twenties or low thirties.

Curtice said in June that Reform’s support should not simply be assumed to “melt away”. His analysis of the British Social Attitudes survey suggested that the party’s support was driven by more than temporary dissatisfaction with the government.

The survey found strong differences between Reform supporters and the wider public on issues including immigration, cultural identity and welfare. Curtice argued that unless other parties addressed the concerns motivating Reform voters, the party was unlikely simply to disappear.

But by August and September, the political situation had changed.

Following Starmer’s departure and Burnham’s arrival in Downing Street, Labour experienced a noticeable improvement in polling.

Curtice described the shift as a “Burnham bounce”.

At the same time, Reform’s support declined from the levels it had enjoyed earlier in the year.

That creates a different challenge for Farage.

The question is no longer simply whether Reform can attract voters dissatisfied with Labour and the Conservatives.

It is whether the party can maintain those voters while Labour attempts to recover its position.

Why the by-election matters

Clacton nevertheless gave Farage an opportunity to demonstrate that Reform retains an electoral base.

The party can point to the result as evidence that its support is not merely a national polling phenomenon.

Farage now has another seat in Parliament from which to lead Reform.

The turnout also mattered.

Curtice noted that voters participated in relatively substantial numbers despite the unusual circumstances surrounding the contest. That gave Reform an argument that the election was not simply an internal party exercise or an uncontested political spectacle.

But there is a major difference between winning a by-election under unusual circumstances and converting national support into hundreds of constituency victories.

That is the problem Reform must ultimately solve.

The geography of Reform support

Britain’s electoral system makes geography especially important.

A party receiving 25 per cent of the national vote does not automatically receive 25 per cent of parliamentary seats.

Its support needs to be concentrated efficiently enough to finish first in individual constituencies.

This was one of Reform’s biggest problems in the 2024 general election.

The party received millions of votes but won only a small number of Commons seats.

Curtice has suggested that the situation could be different if Reform became the leading party across a sufficiently broad range of constituencies.

He has also highlighted the decline in Labour support in some areas where Labour won heavily in 2024. If those constituencies become competitive, the distribution of votes could produce substantial changes in the number of seats won by each party.

This is why national polling should not be converted directly into a prediction of parliamentary seats.

The constituency map matters.

Farage faces a different political challenge

The Clacton victory also comes against a background of difficulties for Reform.

The party has faced scrutiny over political donations and internal controversies.

Farage has been subject to a parliamentary standards investigation concerning a £5 million gift from businessman Christopher Harborne. Reform has said it will cooperate with parliamentary procedures.

There have also been questions about Reform’s organisation and candidate management.

More recently, the party appointed Helen Jenner as its new leader in Wales after the resignation of Dan Thomas, who had been arrested on suspicion of assault and coercive behaviour. The Guardian reported that polling showed declining Reform support in Wales.

None of these developments by themselves determines Reform’s electoral prospects.

But they illustrate the difference between running a protest-oriented political campaign and maintaining a national political organisation capable of contesting hundreds of constituencies.

The danger of reading too much into one result

Farage’s Clacton victory is therefore significant, but it should be placed in context.

The by-election had an unusual candidate field.

Several major parties did not participate.

The contest was triggered by Farage himself.

And the constituency has a long history of strong Eurosceptic and Reform support.

Consequently, the result provides useful information about Farage’s support in Clacton, but it cannot by itself establish how voters across Britain would behave in a general election.

That is precisely where Curtice’s warning becomes relevant.

A party can win a by-election comfortably and still face a highly uncertain national electoral environment.

Conversely, a decline in national polling does not necessarily mean a party will lose large numbers of parliamentary seats.

The relationship between votes and seats depends on constituency-level voting patterns.

What Curtice is really warning about

The most important part of Curtice’s analysis is therefore not a prediction about Farage.

It is a warning about the uncertainty surrounding Britain’s political map.

If Burnham were to call an early election, Labour would be fighting under a different leadership team from the one that contested the 2024 election.

Reform would be fighting with Farage back in Parliament.

The Conservatives would be attempting to recover voters lost to Reform.

And smaller parties could affect individual constituencies by splitting the vote.

Curtice argued that Burnham could risk losing many Labour MPs if he went to the country too early. He noted that Labour’s decline since 2024 had been particularly pronounced in constituencies where the party had previously performed strongly.

That is a warning about electoral arithmetic rather than a prediction of a particular winner.

Farage still has work to do

The Clacton result gives Farage a parliamentary platform and a clear constituency victory.

But the wider challenge remains.

Reform needs to translate national support into constituency-level victories across a much larger part of Britain if it wants to become a major parliamentary force.

That requires candidates, organisation, funding and sustained support over a long period.

Curtice’s June assessment is relevant here. He argued that Reform’s support had deeper ideological roots than a simple protest vote, but also acknowledged that its future level of support was uncertain. He suggested that Reform could fall substantially if other parties successfully addressed the issues motivating its voters.

The Clacton result does not settle that question.

Nor does the recent decline in Reform’s national polling settle it.

What it does show is that Farage remains capable of winning parliamentary contests under favourable local circumstances, while the national electoral picture is considerably less straightforward.

For Reform, the next challenge is therefore much bigger than Clacton.

For Farage, the task is to turn a successful return to Parliament into sustained national support.

And for Curtice, the central warning remains one of electoral uncertainty: Britain’s next general election could produce a radically different parliamentary map from what a simple national opinion-poll percentage might suggest.

That is why the Clacton victory should be viewed as one important piece of evidence, rather than as a definitive guide to what happens across the country at the next general election.