Nigel Farage has admitted he is “disappointed” with Reform UK’s performance in the Makerfield by-election, blaming the party’s defeat on a desire among voters to eject Sir Keir Starmer from Downing Street. The Reform leader claimed frustration with the embattled prime minister had driven Andy Burnham’s “emphatic” Labour victory over his party’s candidate, Rob Kenyon, who finished more than 9,000 votes behind.
Farage also conceded that Reform had lost votes to right-wing rival Restore Britain, founded by ex-Reform MP Rupert Lowe, which finished third in a breakthrough night. He issued a plea for Restore voters to back Reform instead, calling his party the “challenger party to the left”.
“Nigel Farage admits disappointment after Reform UK loses Makerfield by-election to Andy Burnham, who increases Labour's majority.”
Reform had sought to defeat Burnham in the seat, giving it a high-profile scalp to boost its credentials as the likely main opposition party to Labour at the next general election. But Burnham increased Labour’s majority over Reform in the constituency, in a rare feat for a candidate from the governing party. Turnout was nearly 59 per cent – more than six points higher than at the 2024 general election.
In a video clip posted online, Farage said Reform’s second-place finish was “disappointing”, adding Burnham had won with a “vote share that nobody could quite see coming”. “In many ways, he’s a popular local mayor, just as Boris Johnson was a popular mayor in London just a few years ago,” Farage said. “But what really happened here is it was ‘vote Burnham, get Starmer out’.”
He added that Reform had been “slightly hoist with our own petard”, having previously framed elections as a chance for voters to end Starmer’s faltering premiership. He also expressed frustration with Restore, which had pledged “the most ambitious programme of mass deportations ever seen in Britain”. “I thought we’d get 18,000 votes, we got just shy of 16 [thousand],” Farage said.
The outgoing mayor of Greater Manchester is now expected to challenge Sir Keir for the Labour leadership and keys to No 10. The pressure on Starmer continues to grow, with some in his Cabinet reportedly telling him to set a timetable for his departure by the end of the weekend.
Later, after Starmer confirmed his resignation, Farage took to his Substack to claim credit for deposing the prime minister. “Starmer isn’t the first prime minister I’ve deposed, and he won’t be the last,” he wrote, listing David Cameron, Theresa May and Rishi Sunak. “And next up – Andy Burnham.” Farage questioned the democratic legitimacy of a prime minister not in parliament during the last election and called for a general election: “Britain needs change – real change, not another washed-up has-been shoved into place by the uniparty.”