LONDON — Andy Burnham is determined to put his Northern English identity and experience at the center of his pitch to run the U.K., but he already risks alienating voters in the South, according to a new POLITICO Poll.
Even before Burnham takes over as British prime minister, as is expected later this month, research from Public First for POLITICO shows a vast difference in how the former Greater Manchester mayor is seen in Southern and Northern England.
While he has an overall net trust rating of +11 percent nationally, this masks a large regional gap. When asked, “Do you trust Andy Burnham?” voters in Northern England answered “yes” by a margin of +22 percent over those saying “no,” while adults in Southern England were far more skeptical, giving Burnham a negative net trust score of -3 percent.
Burnham is on the cusp of becoming the U.K.’s seventh prime minister in 10 years and — barring a last-minute challenge or mishap — will enter Number 10 Downing Street later this month after being elected unopposed as Labor Party leader.
He has spent the past nine years as mayor of Greater Manchester, an area in Northwestern England with a population of around 3 million. His political appeal stems from his record of infrastructure reform — specifically, successfully rebooting the local bus network — and his personal popularity as a local leader.
Labour lawmakers, the vast majority of whom want him as their next leader, are betting that he can bring his Manchester magic into national government and transform the party’s flagging fortunes. In turn, Burnham has vowed to import his political philosophy of “Manchesterism” to Westminster, while opening a new outpost of No. 10 in the North.
Burnham believes places like the Greater Manchester area have suffered long-term neglect from politicians in London, and has vowed to break the pattern with a radical reset in the power distribution between Westminster and the regions.
But the POLITICO-Public First survey reveals Burnham faces a challenge to convince voters in parts of the country beyond his homeland — where his popularity earned the nickname “King of the North” — that he will govern in their interests too.
“The North, where Burnham performs well, is crucial to Labour’s success, but few previous leaders have had such a strong identification with a region,” said Seb Wride, head of polling at Public First. “To fully turn around Labour’s prospects, Burnham will need to maintain his strong identity with the North, without missing opportunities to relate to the challenges facing London, Scotland and Wales, and the rest of the South.”
King of the North
Burnham, who was born and raised in the North West, is the latest political leader to declare he wants to rebalance the U.K. economy away from London and to break open the insular culture of Westminster to spread power from the center to the regions. Former Labour PM Tony Blair’s government introduced devolution for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, while Conservative Boris Johnson pursued a policy of “leveling up” — an attempt to boost the economies of parts of the country that had fallen behind.
Yet despite the efforts of successive administrations, social and economic disparities between regions remain hard to shift.
Public First found that the North-South divide permeated Burnham’s personal ratings. When it comes to being seen as a good leader or not, respondents in the Northern English regions of the North West, North East and Yorkshire and the Humber gave him a score of +26 percent. That was more than double the net +10 percent rating he received from voters in the South West, South East and East of England.
There was a 24-point gap between North and South on how pleased voters would be to see Burnham as prime minister. In the North of England, the idea of Burnham becoming PM had a net positive score of +22 percent, while among voters in the South the prospect scored a negative -2 percent.
The next PM
Burnham won a special election in the constituency of Makerfield, 20 miles outside Manchester, last month and now seems set to walk into the prime minister’s job without fighting a leadership contest.
According to reports, he does not intend to live in the PM’s official residence of Number 10 Downing Street in London, and instead will retain his home in Manchester and spend at least one day a week working from the new “Number 10 North” office he plans to open in the city.
“The whole country suffers when the regions and nations are not meeting their potential,” Burnham said in a speech setting out his plans for power in Manchester last week. “We will bring about the biggest rebalancing of power our country has seen.”
The Public First results showed Burnham had lost support since winning the Makerfield by-election, especially in the South. Compared to just before the June 18 vote, support for Burnham remained roughly the same in the North — net positive +11 to +12 — but has dropped slightly in the south from net -2 to net -7.
When asked to place Burnham on the right-to-left political scale, voters in the South see him as almost twice as left-wing as those in the North. This may reflect the fact that for much of the past century, Southern England outside London was broadly seen as containing many center-right Conservative heartlands, while Northern regions have included traditional Labour strongholds, although the pattern of support for individual parties is far more complex and volatile in 2026.
Beating Farage
For all the reservations that Southerners have about Burnham, the poll shows he still has the potential nationally to defeat the current front-runner in general election polling: Nigel Farage and his populist-right Reform UK party. That is a critical consideration for Labour MPs and strategists, who expect the next election — whenever it comes — to be a battle to save their seats from a wave of support for Reform.
Among all the leading Labour figures, Burnham is the only potential party leader who would flip Labour back ahead of Reform in the polls. With Burnham in charge, Labour would overtake Reform on a hypothetical vote share of 25 percent to 21 percent.
In a head-to-head choice with Farage, Burnham wins on almost every question. Asked who would “do the better job” as as prime minister, Burnham leads Farage on most issues: Improving the National Health Service by +15 points; improving schools (+16); standing up for ordinary working people (+14); representing the whole country (+10); running the economy (+10); tackling cost of living (+9), foreign relationships (+9); and handling international crises (+6).
Public First said Burnham and Farage tie when it comes to who would be best to stand up to the establishment and on tackling crime. Farage beats Burnham on only two issues: Tackling illegal immigration (+18 points) and having a good relationship with U.S. President Donald Trump (+23).
The next general election is not due until 2029, although Burnham is facing calls to hold one immediately amid questions over whether he has a mandate to be prime minister. He was not even a candidate for parliament at the last election two years ago.
“Most politicians would take Burnham’s approval ratings right now, certainly Starmer would,” said Wride, from Public First. “But these results show he needs to begin the transition from the language that has served him as Manchester mayor, and find his way of talking to the whole country.”