“Burnham won’t solve your problems, because Labour cannot solve your problems,” Farage has said. “His plan for government is to act as continuity Starmer, and hope the rest of us are too stupid to notice.”
There are early attempts to chip away at his right to govern. Reform has already called for an immediate general election — a prospect Badenoch’s Tories, polling considerably worse — are resisting. Reform insiders hope he’ll run into the same fundamental problems that hobbled Starmer in office. “He’ll have a fresh look, but he won’t be able to deliver anything and will become associated with the Labour brand after a few months,” a Reform official said.
Others in the Reform tribe appear keen to talk up the chaos angle and paint Burnham as an extremist. The party’s deputy leader Richard Tice has repeatedly described Burnham’s agenda as “hard socialism” and of the “hard-left.”
Reform’s Tory rivals, who are still struggling in the polls after their own prime-minister-switching run in office came crashing down in 2024, argue the change of leadership should spark panic for Farage’s crew, who have painted themselves as the anti-establishment outsiders.
“I think it doesn’t change too much for us,” a member of the Conservative shadow cabinet argued. “Reform though, blooming heck.”
“Reform’s [argument] until Makerfield was ‘vote Reform, get rid of Starmer’ — now it can’t be ‘vote Reform get rid of Burnham’ because he just thrashed them in a place they should have walked,” the same person said.