Nigel Farage would lose in a direct head-to-head with every other political leader except Zack Polanski, a new survey has shown, suggesting tactical voting could do profound damage to Reform UK’s electoral hopes.
Pollsters More in Common found that only the Green Party leader would come off worse in a showdown with Mr Farage.
In all other head-to-heads, the Reform UK boss would be beaten by every major party figure, including Labour leader Andy Burnham (64-36), Tory leader Kemi Badenoch (67-33), Lib Dem leader Ed Davey (56-44) and even the head of the party that has outflanked him on the right, Restore’s Rupert Lowe (52-48).
By contrast Mr Polanski, who has come under fire in recent weeks for his party’s ‘Zionism is racism’ policy, loses 52-48 to Farage.
And Mr Burnham wins against all his alternatives, with his closest rivalry when he comes up against the Conservative leader (58-42).
The “forced choice” asks those who take part to choose from two options who they would prefer to be PM.
It adds: “You might not like either of them, but please choose what would be the best option for you”.
Mr Tryl, the UK director of More in Common told The Independent: “The challenge for both Polanski and Farage is that they have become even more polarising, that means in a forced choice people flock to their opponents much more readily. Given the likely extent of tactical voting at the next election that is a real problem for them”.
He added: “The forced choice heads to heads give you perhaps the starkest picture of how Burnham outperforms Starmer right now. Starmer was less preferred than Davey or Badenoch and tied with Farage/Polanski. The shift of Burnham (versus) Polanski is particularly stark from 50-50 under Starmer to 80-20 for Burnham.”
The finding that he would be beaten by Mr Lowe, whose tiny party has just one MP, will come as a blow to Mr Farage. Elected initially as a Reform MP, he founded Restore Britain only in June 2025. He recently he hit the headlines when he refused to say King Charles is a “white Briton”, because his father was Greek.
A separate poll last month suggested widespread tactical voting could push Reform UK into fourth place and put Labour within touching distance of a majority in Parliament at the next election.
🧵Tracking latest forced choice PM heads to heads
— Luke Tryl (@LukeTryl) October 23, 2026
🌹Burnham wins handily against all alternatives, closest but still clear against Badenoch, overwhelmingly against Polanski.
🌳Badenoch beats the other 4 leaders.
➡️Farage only wins against Polanski
🌍Polanski now loses all of… pic.twitter.com/MVQ4P8ijhJ
The findings, from a poll of more than 8,000 people by Survation, suggest a pathway to majority government for Andy Burnham, if he attracts a significant number of left-leaning voters to Labour who are motivated by a desire to stop Nigel Farage.
That would be a marked contrast to the run up to the 2024 general election, when Labour tried to appeal to more conservative older voters in Red Wall seats.
MIC asked 3,069 adults beween 16-19 October.
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