no idea why people think he would appeal to Labour voters that have gone over to Reform on the basis that he appeals to parliamentarians left of Starmer on the Labour party. Surely, where's the crossover, in terms of values, there?
You assume a few things here.
That people are intending to vote FOR Reform rather than AGAINST the current government. This is significant.
We've seen this dynamic before. May was deeply unpopular and only narrowly avoided defeat at election. But only a couple of years later Johnson completely turned that around on the basis of presenting himself as different to the May government even though they were the same party.
Johnson's election manifesto was hugely popular in Manchester and the North in general. He got over the line on the basis of the old UKIP/Labour voters. Yet this manifesto was completely ripped off from Burnham. So to say there's no overlap is to not understand the complexity of British politics and the prevailing winds and narratives of FOR and AGAINST.
People vote on Personality, Politics (Policy) and Party.
For a long time Party tended to be the dominant force. Then Brexit happened and turned that on it's head. There was a brief moment of policy being most important before Personality has really become the driving force (for and against) within British politics. We see it with Farage, with Polanski, with Johnson.
Burnham is another of these figures. Weirdly no one voted FOR Starmer and that's always been one of his biggest issues. He was unpopular before he started as PM on a personal level. People instead voted AGAINST Johnson even though those same people had really liked his manifesto and those people are now your core Reform type voters.
So there's actually MASSIVE overlap. The issue is that policy, party and politics don't line up perfectly in the way we think.