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  "description": "Andy Burnham’s Makerfield victory offers Labour a possible route out of crisis while exposing Reform UK’s limits and deepening pressure on Keir Starmer.",
  "path": "/2026/06/20/andy-burnham-needed-a-big-win-the-makerfield-result-means-labour-might-have-reason-to-hope/",
  "publishedAt": "2026-06-20T01:27:01.000Z",
  "site": "https://www.europeans.today",
  "tags": [
    "Starmer’s government",
    "23-point",
    "54.8% vote share",
    "20 percentage points",
    "exceptionally inappropriate one",
    "Labour won only 24%",
    "finished third",
    "Lowe has checked Farage",
    "Labour did poorly",
    "blocked Burnham’s candidature",
    "combined vote share",
    "electoral reform",
    "a harder leftist in Jeremy Corbyn",
    "“the bright gleam”",
    "Will ‘ordinariness’ be enough to swing the result in Makerfield?",
    "Burnham rules out a rejoin push as Makerfield puts Labour’s Brexit divide under pressure",
    "Who are the main contenders to replace Keir Starmer as prime minister?",
    "Makerfield by-election: Crunching the numbers - why Burnham’s win is so significant",
    "Andy Burnham wins huge majority in Makerfield byelection, paving way for Starmer leadership challenge",
    "The Conversation",
    "Number 10",
    "Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License"
  ],
  "textContent": "🔍 WHY THIS STORY MATTERS\nBurnham’s Makerfield win could reshape Labour’s leadership, test Reform UK’s momentum, and influence how Britain’s fractured party politics develop before the next national contest.\n\n* * *\n\nKEY TAKEAWAYS...\n\n● Andy Burnham’s emphatic Makerfield victory strengthens his position as a potential Labour leader.\n● The result increases pressure on Keir Starmer after further poor Labour performances elsewhere.\n● Reform UK’s momentum appears to have slowed, despite favourable conditions in the constituency.\n● The by-election highlights tactical voting and the growing importance of electoral reform in British politics.\n\nT  he possible nominative determinism of the Makerfield constituency may prove as significant to political historians as it has been a blessing to newspaper sub-editors crafting puns on “Makerfield or Breakerfield”.\n\nThe immediate futures of Andy Burnham and Keir Starmer were decided in the historic happening of the first UK by-election to effectively elect a prime minister. It was a battle of our times.\n\nBurnham’s success will make a new administration as it breaks the present one. Prime Minister Starmer’s government has been largely an ineffectual one – of which Burnham, crucially, was not a part.\n\nThis may be the moment – _“the final chance to change”_ , as the victorious candidate put it – that transforms the performance and perception of Labour. But it also demonstrates how profoundly, and rapidly, politics in Britain is changing.\n\nGoverning parties don’t win by-elections, and certainly not on 23-point swings. Burnham’s 54.8% vote share, more than 20 percentage points more than that of Reform UK, was unexpectedly emphatic – a personal triumph.\n\nThe momentum behind Reform UK’s leader, Nigel Farage, has if not stalled then noticeably decelerated. A second seat in the north-west that Reform ought to have won this year, it hasn’t – and this time resoundingly.\n\nMuch was down to Labour’s exceptional candidate – and Reform’s exceptionally inappropriate one. In the May local election, Reform was rampant, Labour won only 24% of the vote in Makerfield, and Restore Britain didn’t stand. Last night, Rupert Lowe’s party finished third.\n\nLowe has checked Farage with politics of such unabashed illiberalism as to make Reform resemble the Liberal Democrats. It is too simplistic to assume that had Restore not stood, its voters would have turned to Reform (and in any case, Burnham would still have won conclusively). But rather than deal in switchers, Restore’s menace is its appeal to non-voters.\n\nThis by-election was not merely a matter of getting someone into parliament to supplant a prime minister. It was intended, and needed to be, a statement.\n\nMore than any incumbent party in history, given the unique febrility of politics in 2026, Labour could not hope, much less expect, to win a by-election anywhere. Never competitive in rural constituencies, in cities Labour is prey to the Greens, in towns to Reform and Restore, and in Scotland and Wales to nationalists. (Labour did poorly in the other by-elections on the same day, both in Scotland.)\n\n### **Reform and tactical voting**\n\nIronically, given the central importance of “place” in this by-election, Makerfield isn’t one. A swathe of small towns and bits of larger ones, its identity is regional and emblematic, if not typical, of seats which used in lore to weigh rather than count votes for Labour. However, new parties now appeal in a political marketplace for the disaffected.\n\nAndy Burnham contesting a seat in Greater Manchester was almost the only likely Labour victory. There were more propitious seats, such as Gorton and Denton in February, but a weak Starmer blocked Burnham’s candidature. Weakened further by the May elections, the prime minister was unable to do so a second time for Makerfield.\n\nAs it turned out, that initial rebuff has burnished Burnham’s subsequent success. The greater marginality of Makerfield makes the statement much greater.\n\nReform’s rise has been tempered by two otherwise unrelated phenomena. Just as Farage inspires, he also repels: his is a unique talent for encouraging tactical voting (the Conservative, Liberal Democrat and Green party combined vote share of just 3.3% in Makerfield suggests as much).\n\nBurnham’s clearest and most long-term policy – electoral reform – is intended to address the negativity surrounding politics today. The salience of proportional representation has never been greater than in Britain’s new multi-party politics. With Burnham as prime minister, it is likely to be a Labour manifesto commitment for the first time.\n\nBut Burnham’s undoubted personal popularity provides more questions than answers – not least, whether a politician who has been highly successfully regionally can translate that record to the national, and international, level.\n\nThere is also the question of whether the affability and relatability so integral to his appeal can withstand the vicissitudes of the highest office – as well as the scepticism, cynicism and increasing impatience of voters. Burnham will soon discover that the quickest way for a popular politician to become an unpopular politician is to become prime minister.\n\nThis is not Burnham’s first attempt to lead Labour. To the political questions of the day in 2010 and 2015, he was not the answer. In the post-New Labour world, Burnham lost to a softer leftist in Ed Miliband. And in the electoral wild west begat by Miliband’s party reforms, he lost to a harder leftist in Jeremy Corbyn.\n\nBut third time around, Burnham might just be the answer. The fractured multi-party politics of 2026 may respond more favourably to Labour with a leader whom its members and voters actually want to vote for.\n\nGetting Labour’s vote out next time will be its highest priority. As almost never happens, the turnout in yesterday’s by-election was higher than in the general election.\n\nBurnham’s re-election to parliament would always – to use the word of the age – change things. The measure would be the scale of his victory. For him to be a serious alternative leader, much less a saviour, the victory needed to be big. It was, and it was also personal.\n\nBut whether his appeal is portable will soon be the question. Some in Labour may see in Makerfield, as Churchill did El-Alamein, “the bright gleam” of victory. It certainly denotes both the beginning of Starmer’s end, and the end of Burnham’s beginning.\n\n────────── ◌ EUROPEANS TODAY ◌\n\n🔮 WHAT MATTERS NEXT...\n\n**🎯 WHAT TO WATCH NEXT:**\n\n● Whether Burnham formally moves from parliamentary victory to a Labour leadership challenge.\n● How quickly Starmer’s allies can stabilise support inside the parliamentary Labour Party.\n● Whether Reform UK recalibrates candidate selection and messaging after another missed opportunity.\n● The coming Greater Manchester mayoral contest triggered by Burnham’s return to Westminster.\n● Whether Labour adopts electoral reform as a central manifesto commitment under future leadership.\n\n**🎯 MOST LIKELY OUTCOME:**\n\n● Burnham’s victory accelerates Labour’s internal leadership pressure, while Reform UK remains electorally dangerous but less inevitable than its polling momentum suggested.\n\n**🎯 WHAT COULD CHANGE THE PICTURE:**\n\n● A rapid Labour split, a poorly managed leadership process, or a stronger Reform performance in the next Greater Manchester contest could blunt Burnham’s momentum.\n\n**🎯 WHY THIS MATTERS:**\n\n● Makerfield gives Labour a possible renewal story, but only if Burnham’s local appeal can survive national scrutiny.\n\n──────────  SIGN UP NOW  TO RECEIVE TOMORROW’S BRIEFING IN YOUR INBOX.\n\n\n\n\n### **GOING FURTHER**\n\n  * ######  Will ‘ordinariness’ be enough to swing the result in Makerfield? | _Europeans TODAY_\n\n  * ######  Burnham rules out a rejoin push as Makerfield puts Labour’s Brexit divide under pressure | _Europeans TODAY_\n\n  * ######  Who are the main contenders to replace Keir Starmer as prime minister? | _Europeans TODAY_\n\n  * ######  Makerfield by-election: Crunching the numbers - why Burnham’s win is so significant | _Sky News_\n\n  * ######  Andy Burnham wins huge majority in Makerfield byelection, paving way for Starmer leadership challenge | _The Guardian_\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n* * *\n\n#### **Sources:**\n\n###### ▪ This piece was originally published in The Conversation and re-published in Europeans TODAY on 20 June 2026. | The author writes in a personal capacity.\n\n###### ▪ **Cover:** Flickr/Number 10. (Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.)\n\n\n\n\n* * *\n\n\n",
  "title": "Andy Burnham needed a big win. The Makerfield result means Labour might have reason to hope",
  "updatedAt": "2026-06-20T01:27:25.048Z"
}