He’s finally confirmed it.
On a special by-election edition of Question Time last night, Andy Burnham said that if he wins Makerfield, he’ll challenge Sir Keir Starmer for his job as Prime Minister.
Burnham looked tired, slightly subdued, clearly trying to play down jibes one hears on the streets of Makerfield that he’s “cocky”, that this by-election is unnecessary and “all about Andy” and his ambitions. Burnham’s words were deliberate and cleverly crafted: “I’ll seek to represent you at the highest level,” he told the BBC audience of Makerfield voters.
I hate it when journalists hype up elections. But I can’t think of a by-election in a hundred years that’s been more momentous. This contest in a seat which straddles the M6, half way between Liverpool and Manchester, is the most important in modern history.
If Andy Burnham wins, he’ll have demonstrated he can beat Nigel Farage in what was Reform’s 40th best seat, where Reform got a full slate of councillors last month. Burnham would give Labour the “verve” which Peter Mandelson had said Starmer lacks, and an undoubted boost in the polls.
Yet strangely, on the streets of Makerfield, there are few signs the area is about to make history. On Wednesday, I walked around talking to voters in the communities of Ashton-in-Makerfield, Platt Bridge and Hindley. I found no excitement, no carnival atmosphere. There are few big posters in gardens or windows. No colour or noise. I met no canvassers, nor even people doling out leaflets. An outsider wouldn’t even notice a by-election was happening.
It shows how people in Makerfield are weary of politics, and what democracy can do for them. Where once having the MP as the prime minister might have been a great honour for a community like this, now many locals fear it would make Burnham too remote, and he’d have no time to help his constituents.
Despite the hype, many won’t vote. “What’s the point?” they ask. “It makes no difference,” is the regular refrain. “They’re all the same – out for themselves.”
This wasn’t my first trip here. Seven years ago I came to Platt Bridge in search of my ancestry, and the story of a disaster in 1869 at Low Hall colliery when 27 men died in an underground explosion, including four of my forebears. In an instant, my great-great-grandmother Ann Fairhurst lost her father; her husband; her brother, and her brother-in-law. It took weeks to recover their bodies.
This was once part of the south Lancashire coalfield, one of the many mining communities which were the traditional heart of the Labour movement – held together by values such as solidarity, courage, patriotism and toil. Areas like this almost always elected miners as their MPs.
Now, there are only four former miners left in the Commons, symbolically not all Labour. Lee Anderson, who was once Labour, is now chairman of Reform UK: a party which is now just as popular as Labour amongst working-class voters and trade unionists. Makerfield won’t just decide our next prime minister, but it’s a referendum on whether Labour still speaks for the working class descendants of the Low Hall miners, or whether Reform now better matches their values – and concerns about being ignored.
“My husband would turn in his grave if he knew I wasn’t voting Labour,” said one woman on the street. “But we need a change and Burnham isn’t it. And he’s too close to that Angela Rayner. I can’t stand the thought of her representing me.”
“I don’t like Andy Burnham; he’s cocky. He thinks he’s got it in the bag,” said another voter. “I feel like we’re just being used as pawns because Andy wants to be prime minister.”
Burnham admitted on TV last night that the contest is “tight” and “not a given”. He’s right. Most political commentators seem to be forecasting a Burnham victory, and for weeks I’ve said Burnham’s chances are 60 per cent. Now, I’d say they’re only 50-50.
It was striking how many people are now solid for Reform, particular young working-class men. They seem not to care that their party’s candidate, Rob Kenyon, is sexist, not that bright or well-informed, and has recently wiped several social media accounts which showed him behaving like a moron. In one notorious exchange, Kenyon posted a thumbs up sign and a laughing emoji to someone who had described in explicit sexual terms what he’d like to do with the TV presenter Carole Vorderman.
Vorderman has written to constituents in Makerfield and wants an apology. But last night on Question Time, Kenyon once again refused to say sorry to Vorderman, though he admits his social media postings were crass. On Radio Manchester, yesterday, Kenyon – a former army reservist – explained it as “a bit of squaddie banter”. He dismissed Vorderman as left-wing and a supporter of the group Hope Not Hate – hardly justifications for not saying sorry.
This isn’t a contest between Burnham and Kenyon, of course, but Burnham and Farage, currently the two most charismatic politicians in British politics. But many voters here are also adamant Farage must be stopped. “Nigel Farage is like Trump,” one woman told me. “And he lies. He lied about Brexit.”
“It has to be Burnham,” said a man who’d traditionally voted Conservative. “He’s the only way to get rid of Keir Starmer.” And his wife agreed.
The great irony of this contest, of course, is that a Reform victory could be the lifeline Keir Starmer desperately needs. Burnham would be out of the race: he could hardly ask the Labour Party to let him fight another by-election. Starmer might survive for many more months, since it’s not obvious that Wes Streeting, Angela Rayner or any other alternatives would get the support of enough MPs and Labour Party members to topple him. And Starmer’s performances have perked up since Labour’s local election disaster.
But a handsome victory for Reform – especially with a fourth rate-candidate and against the most popular Labour politician in the country – would be a huge boost to Nigel Farage’s journey to Downing Street. And Makerfield could be the historic moment which condemns our two old parties, Labour and Conservative, to oblivion.
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