Poll / Research Item
Britain Unbound has commissioned some exclusive polling of the residents of Andy Burnham’s constituency in Makerfield. The survey was conducted by the respected polling firm Survation using similar methods to its work before the 2026 by-election, weighted to capture an accurate distribution of voters in the constituency.
The purpose of the poll was to establish if the Prime Minister’s policies would meet his own “Makerfield Test” – whereby policies should not be introduced across the UK if they would not be acceptable to the electors of Makerfield.
The poll asked voters who should decide UK economic policy on ten different issues. It followed the design of a 2025 YouGov poll on British voters’ attitudes towards sovereignty run by Dr Richard Johnson, Senior Lecturer in Politics at Queen Mary, University of London. The poll deliberately did not mention the EU in order to break voters out of so-called Brexit ‘tribes’. Instead, the poll is designed to test core attitudes on where decisions are made.
In every case, a clear majority of the voters polled in Makerfield said policy should be decided by UK governments alone, with a range between 67% (medicine approval for the NHS) and 80% (state aid for regional development). This range included 69% support in the case of animal welfare standards, 74% for food standards, 75% for refusing criminals entry to the UK, and 78% for the setting of VAT rates.
In contrast, only tiny minorities (from between 12% down to just 2%) thought that the UK should be required to follow decisions made by international institutions on any of these issues.
The Makerfield voters provide a stunning rejection of Andy Burnham’s expected transfer of powers away from democratically elected MPs in Britain to unelected EU institutions in Brussels.
All the issues polled would in future be decided, wholly or in part, by the European Union if Britain were to rejoin the EU or the Single Market, or even if the UK simply agreed to accept EU rules in some of these specific areas – as Andy Burnham proposes.
This polling comes at a pivotal moment. The Prime Minister has said he will use the UK-EU summit on 20 November to “lay out to the country what I believe the different options are for Britain’s long-term relationship with our European partners”.
He has suggested there are only three options: form a new customs union, join the Single Market, or go all the way and become a full member of the European Union again.
Britain Unbound supports a fourth option: staying outside the EU and making more of Britain’s Brexit freedoms. The new polling in Makerfield shows voters in the Prime Minister’s own constituency want this option to remain on the table too.
Britain Unbound also warns that the so-called ‘reset’ risks drawing the UK back under EU control on terms that could prove worse than membership. This includes ‘dynamic alignment’ with EU rules, for example under the planned SPS agreement on food and agriculture; a role for EU judges in settling disputes; and crippling constraints on an independent UK trade policy. In each case, the group argues, Britain would be placed under rules on which it has no say.
ps. our Advisory Council member and Senior Lecturer in Politics, Richard Johnson, has recorded a short video summarising the results of our Makerfield polling, which you can view here...
And you can view and download the full slide deck on the polling here...
