New polling shows ‘scale of challenge’ facing Burnham in Scotland

More Scots would be unhappy about Holyrood ministers working with the Labour Government at Westminster than Sinn Féin politicians in Northern Ireland, polling has found.

Research by Ipsos Scotland found 27% would be unhappy about the Scottish Government working closely with Sinn Féin ministers in Belfast, while 34% would not be happy about Holyrood ministers collaborating with the UK Government.

Ipsos Scotland managing director Emily Gray said the polling “sums up the scale of the challenge facing Andy Burnham in Scotland”.

While Mr Burnham – who is expected to succeed Sir Keir Starmer to become Britain’s next prime minister – has a positive approval rating across the country as whole, he still has a negative rating in Scotland.

Ipsos found Mr Burnham has a favourability rating of plus 8 across Britain, but in Scotland this is minus 10, with 34% of people north of the border regarding him unfavourably and 24% having a favourable view of him.

However this was the highest rating amongst the frontrunners to be prime minister Ipsos questioned Scots on, with former deputy prime minister Angela Rayner having a rating of minus 32, and former UK health secretary Wes Streeting – who has already confirmed he will not run against Mr Burnham – on minus 40.

This is the same as Sir Keir’s approval rating, with 58% of Scots viewing the departing PM unfavourably and 18% viewing him favourably.

Speaking to the Press Association, Ms Gray said there is a “middle ground” of four out of 10 Scots who “either sit on the fence about Burnham… or they don’t know enough to rate him”.

This group “just really haven’t seen enough of him to know what he stands for yet”, she added, with Mr Burnham “less well known in Scotland than perhaps some of the other Labour politicians would have been”.

Ms Gray said: “Because Andy Burnham is starting from a negative rating, that tells us he has more to do to win over the public in Scotland.

“Burnham’s window really is probably quite short for voters in Scotland to make up their minds about him. Certainly Starmer’s popularity declined pretty quickly after the general election.”

Adding it is “unclear” what Mr Burnham’s policies would be “on issues that matter to people in Scotland”, Ms Gray said a strong focus on devolution could see him improve his popularity with voters.

“How he navigates the constitutional question really will be something to watch,” she said.

“He has long been an advocate of devolution in England and has argued it is far too centralised, what we haven’t heard from him is what his positive view for Scotland and the wider union would be.

“There is a need for him to set that out pretty soon in his time in office. I think if he doesn’t do that the risk is that Scots come to view him as just another UK prime minister who will overlook concerns that matter to them rather than addressing them.

“But if he does focus more on the devolved nations and does set out more of a vision than either Starmer of Conservative prime ministers did before him, the Scottish public could come to feel Burnham ‘gets Scotland’ in a way that previous UK prime ministers haven’t.

“What we should remember is Burnham is less popular in Scotland than he is in Britain overall, so where in Ipsos polling in Britain we see that Burnham receives a net positive rating from the public of plus 8, in Scotland it is a negative rating at minus 10, so he is starting from a lower base here in Scotland than he is across the country.

“Burnham may have a relatively short time in which to set his tone and make an impact.

“We saw with Keir Starmer he had positive approval ratings ahead of becoming PM, ahead of the 2024 general election, but those ratings slumped pretty quickly both for the leader and for Labour in Government once he was in office.

“So just because you have a positive approval rating before you become prime minister, that is no guarantee the public will continue to have faith in you once you are in Downing Street.”