Andy Burnham won the Makerfield by-election by a margin larger than Labour's 2024 general election landslide, taking 55 per cent of the vote — 24,937 votes against Reform UK's 15,696. In his victory speech, Burnham declared the result “a final chance to change” for the Labour government, which is cripplingly unpopular in the polls, and claimed the constituency had “voted for hope”.
The incoming MP, who served as health secretary under Gordon Brown before a decade as mayor of Greater Manchester, now looms as the most serious challenger to Sir Keir Starmer. Burnham wants Starmer to set out a timetable for his departure in the coming days, and to be in Downing Street by September. The Prime Minister has continued to insist he “will stand” in any leadership contest, despite calls from Labour backbenchers for him to set an exit date.
“Burnham wins Makerfield with larger majority than Labour's 2024 landslide, setting up potential leadership challenge.”
Burnham's campaign laid out a series of policy ideas. He committed to Chancellor Rachel Reeves's economic rules and Labour's manifesto promise not to increase the main rates of income tax, VAT or National Insurance. He has repeatedly advocated bringing water “back under stronger public control”, pointing to Greater Manchester's bus network as a model, and has backed public ownership for companies like Thames Water. The government estimated nationalising the entire water industry would cost £100bn, though that figure has been disputed. He also supports a “national care levy” to replace inheritance tax, saying in a 2023 speech that “care [that] is provided is free” and “everybody would pay but obviously the wealthiest would pay the most”. Asked about this during the campaign, Burnham said he did not “resile” from his previous stance.
Helen Miller, director at the Institute for Fiscal Studies, warned: “Whoever is the prime minister, they will find that, within the fiscal rules, there is very limited scope to increase spending on a particular area without cutting back spending elsewhere or raising taxes.”
Reform UK, which had hoped to humiliate Burnham, fell short. Restore Britain — the party set up by ex-Reform MP Rupert Lowe — scored just 3,111 votes (7 per cent), lower than the BNP's 2010 high watermark in the seat. The Conservatives lost their deposit, winning under a thousand votes. Burnham acknowledged that voters from the Greens, Liberal Democrats and Tories had lent their votes to him.
Burnham's next move is to resign as Greater Manchester mayor, triggering a swift mayoral by-election. At his Friday morning rally, Louise Haigh, the former transport secretary who ran his campaign, said the mayor “could hardly have found a more difficult seat to challenge”. Burnham, who has cultivated a “dadcore” image of white polo shirts and jeans instead of suits, now returns to Westminster with the stated aim of making the country “work fairly for everywhere and everybody”.