STORY
Reform UK’s candidate in the Makerfield by-election is under renewed pressure after polling suggested Andy Burnham has moved into a narrow lead in a contest that had been expected to offer Nigel Farage’s party one of its strongest chances of taking a Labour seat.
A Survation poll for Election Data Ltd put Burnham on 43% and Reform candidate Robert Kenyon on 40%, with Restore Britain on 7%, the Liberal Democrats on 4%, the Greens on 3% and the Conservatives on 2%. Survation said the figures showed Burnham’s personal vote pulling Labour ahead in a constituency where Reform led Labour by 11 points on a generic Westminster voting intention question.
Kenyon’s campaign has been hit by a series of disclosures about previous online comments. The Guardian reported that he had criticised Brexit in 2016 as economically damaging and accused campaigners of having “peddled the nationalistic pish”, comments which sit awkwardly with Reform’s central political identity. The same report said previous posts had also raised questions about his views on Covid vaccines, Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea and interactions with far-right figures.
Carol Vorderman has also demanded an apology from Kenyon after reports linked him to a crude social media exchange about her. She described the comments as “disgusting” and said public online abuse should not be excused simply because it was posted before someone became a parliamentary candidate. Reform UK MP Danny Kruger acknowledged that the language was inappropriate, but argued that it should be seen in the context of comments made before Kenyon entered frontline politics.
Reform has continued to defend Kenyon, saying it fully backs him and has no plans to investigate the allegations. The party has argued that the posts were made before he entered politics and that he should not be judged as though he had spent years as a professional politician.