As The Mace predicted after visiting Makerfield over the weekend, Andy Burnham’s victory is now likely to force the Keir Starmer “exit, stage left” moment of his Downing Street departure. 

But as I write, there is no sign that the Prime Minister is standing down imminently.  Labour can now expect a bitter and bloody internecine civil war and leadership challenge. Indeed,  reports this morning are that the Starmer has amassed a war chest to fight Burnham. 

The next few days will bring no shortage of political drama. Dozens of Labour MPs have already been trying to improve their job prospects by rallying round Andy Burnham after he won 55% of the Makerfield by-election. Richard Burgon, the member for Leeds East, said in a social media post that the result shows a “Trump-style far-right government here after the next election is not inevitable”. 

As one of the 89 seats that Reform came second to Labour in the last election, it was a significant victory for Burnham personally as it showed that his brand can beat off Reform in critically important North-West or Red Wall seats. 

Cool Aid Andy: Burnham is back 

We now know that Labour wins when you have two right wing parties fighting it out for votes. But the result is more than such a truism. After spending time talking to people in Ashfield-in-Makerfield, with its Job Centre, boarded up pubs – emblazoned with “Vote Andy” posters – it’s clear that Burnham – who lives just outside the constituency in the village of Goldborne – had a strong local appeal with his “Mr Cool of the North” personal brand cutting through to parts of the North-West that Starmer could never reach.

In the end Burnham saw off Reform by some 9000 votes. Restore’s own polling data was proved to be badly wrong with Rupert Lowe’s insurgent party winning only 6.8 % of the vote when Restore’s Makerfield canvassing teams were boasting of around 15%, or more. Having actually increased Reform’s share of the vote since the 2024 election, Farage can wake up feeling that although losing the seat to Labour was disappointing, Reform did well enough – polling a respectable 35% of the vote – considering the regrettable social media history of their ‘Plucky Plumber’ candidate. 

Most importantly for Farage the headlines this morning are not about how Restore tore into Reform’s right flank, and re-aligned the right’s political landscape. Restore’s candidate only won a paltry 3111 votes which is little over the capacity of Wimbledon No 3 Court. It had been reported that Restore’s imported army of volunteers – who gathered in their hundreds on Saturday and Sunday to pick up leaflets in the Owners & Trainers car-park over the weekend – were making inroads on Reform and converting Reform voters. 

White Mischief

But it looks like media coverage exposing the white supremacist and Neo-Nazi links of backers to Restore, along with comments from Rupert Lowe that he would be happy to have the likes of Tommy Robinson as a member, proved too much for the voters of Makerfield.  

At the start of the campaign, with Reform having won over 50% of the vote in the local elections and winning over the local Makerfield wards, some thought the result might be Reform’s by-election to lose. 

But national politics doesn’t work like that. Talking to people in the constituency made it clear that Burnham’s popularity was a major factor in his victory which must be seen as a personal victory. As one Burnham supporter told me in the Sainsbury car-park: “He has been on his morning run past my house every morning for several years when he’s home. It’s not electioneering. He drinks with locals down The Queen Anne. He’s a very likeable, normal politician who we think can get Labour back on track again. It’s time for change.”  

Walking around Ashfield-in-Makerfield at the weekend had felt a little like being in Putney for the Varsity Boat Race. Restore’s supporters were all decked out in smart dark blue sweatshirts and baseball caps, Reform in light teal blue. 

In The Bay Mare pub, near Haydock Park race course, one Restore volunteer had bragged to me: “I converted eight Reform members this morning and got them to take down their boards”. He could have been a pilot talking of Spitfire kills in 1940. But such optimistic rhetoric proved to be wildly short of the mark and the national pollsters predicted Restore’s 6.8 % vote share accurately.

Farage, like Burnham, had a strong popular personal brand following in around the area –but the campaign was harmed by “local lad” candidate Robert Kenyon. His ‘sexist’ comments may have hurt Reform more than any Restore candidate. Indeed, it is now being said that he would have failed the new prospective parliamentary candidate ‘vetting’ procedure for Reform. 

“Politics is about the ebb and flow of the political arena and this by-election should not now bother Farage too much.”

Politics is about the ebb and flow of the political arena and this by-election should not now bother Farage too much. Time to motor on. Despite his underwhelming performance on Question Time, Rob Kenyon actually polled 35% against 31.4 % when he stood in 2024 at the general election. 

We shall forget it 

Farage is still way ahead nationally as the anti-establishment party and ahead in the polls. No political earthquake has occurred, nor has his right flank been torn off. At various politico summer parties in Westminster this week, the talk was of how, if Restore hit double digits in the by-election, then it would put increasing pressure on Nigel and Kemi to realise that they needed to start dialogue about forming some “Conservative family” pact, to stave off a fragmented left-wing coalition of all sorts. 

The Makefield result makes this very unlikely now. And when Kemi Badenoch gets up to speak next Thursday at the Tory Summer Party at Raffles Hotel in Whitehall, I suspect that any talk of an electoral pact with Reform is the very last thing guests paying £1,000 a ticket will be hearing. 

Insurgent parties, as Farage knows only too well, always get their moment in the sun being found out, or found wanting. Restore’s extreme views and Neo-Nazi links make Reform now look positively mainstream. Just as they can go from zero to national party status after one or two strong election results, so they can fizzle out just as quickly. 

Back in 2024, before the General Election, Reform had no MPs, no councillors and no money. Now it has eight MPs, 24 outright council majorities, 2356 councillors and millions in the bank and – as of June 11th, according to Poll Check Reform – UK has led for 408 consecutive days across 288 consecutive polls (319 polls total). Reform leads Labour by 8.9 points at 27.6% with Labour at 18.7% and the Conservatives on 18.7%. Restore do not even feature in these polls as a named party, falling under “Other” at just over 4%. 

Light Blue v Dark Blue 

Had Restore’s percentage been over 10%, or more, the Sunday papers this weekend would have predicted a bloody new “dark blue v light blue” war on the political right. But, again, that is not going to be the big story as Reform’s light blue colours outperformed Restore by a comfortable margin.  

True, the Tories only managed to get 2% of the Makerfield vote, which is humiliating for them after candidate Simon Finklestein won 10.2 % of the vote at the 2024 election. Yet, on the same night, there was much better news for the Tories in the Aberdeen South by-election which looks like a critical Tory advance in Scotland.

What divides Farage and Lowe, for whom zero love is lost between them, is that they have very different political philosophies, parties and influences. It’s not accurate to say that Lowe is simply copying the Farage anti-establishment and immigration playbook. Reform has credible former ministers in their senior ranks and, under James Orr as Head of Policy, are developing fully costed and stress-tested policies across all government departments. Restore really is just more of a one-man band, albeit admittedly with over 100,000 social media members. Lowe’s Makerfield candidate, local riding school owner Rebecca Shepherd, was largely unavailable for interview and scarcely seen during the by-election campaign. 

If the battle for Makerfield was back in the 17^th century English Civil War, Farage would be an outspoken, swashbuckling, wine drinking, Cavalier commander, the first to offer his “stirrup cups”, whilst Lowe would be an unflinching Roundhead general. Lowe is thought to be a fan of Oliver Cromwell. 

Farage will be hoping that once Restore starts to get put under proper policy scrutiny at their party conference (no details yet), or when their links to various white supremist movements are exposed, the party will sink. 

But the Makerfield by-election experience will have focused his mind – and that of deputy chairman Paul Nuttall, the party vice-chairman in charge of candidate selection – on the importance of “candidate quality.”  Reform has an issue in that, to quote one HQ source, “every councillor thinks they are going to become an MP”. If there is one take-away lesson from Makerfield, it’s, er…no, many local councillors may not be even contesting seats, or at least target ones. 

Candidate selection will be a bitter internal party battle that is yet to be fought. But my gut feeling is that annoyed as Farage will be over Makerfield, some useful lessons have been learnt on the candidate side. Some within Reform’s senior command inner circle might even be thinking: “Bring it on, Andy”. 

If Burnham gets to become prime minister, some might say it helps Reform as it only increases the likelihood of an early election. With “Red Ed” Miliband possibly as the new Chancellor, Burnham and Angela Rayner will surely tack the party to the left and create exactly the sort of economic chaos that will rattle the markets, possibly triggering a fiscal melt-down and a Liz-Truss-style political Armageddon that can only be resolved by going to the country. 

Point of Departure

Burnham’s victory speech was an unvarnished Labour leadership challenge. Expect over 100 Labour MPs to “come out” for Burnham over the next 48 hours demanding that Starmer sets out a timetable for his departure from Downing Street.   

More senior cabinet resignations are expected on Friday, following defence secretary John Healey and Armed Forces minister Al Carns last week, plunging the government again into turmoil. With the next round of resignations rumoured to include Ed Miliband and, quite possibly, Rachel Reeves, this would make Starmer’s position unviable. 

That’s because Starmer lost the support of most of his parliamentary party months ago. It’s no secret that Starmer has never had good relations with most MPs in his parliamentary party, ignoring them mostly. The Times said his position looked “fatal” after he lost his defence secretary.

With Starmer now increasingly looking like a “dead PM walking”, Labour history might repeat itself – some 50 years after a PM blindsided colleagues – with another surprise resignation. A sitting Labour prime minister has never been ousted before but there have been resignations before. 

1976 Revisited 

Yes, we have been repeatedly told that Starmer is going to fight any leadership challenge and that he’s not going to quit Downing Street. But look what happened in March 1976 when Harold Wilson unexpectedly resigned as prime minister, catching MPs and his cabinet completely off-guard. 

When Wilson shocked the country by standing down, only a few close colleagues knew he would do it. After winning two elections in 1974 (with a hung parliament), Wilson’s allies and supporters assumed he would seek to serve a full time in office as PM. But he was quickly succeeded by James Callaghan and remained an MP until 1983 when he was elevated to the Lords as a peer. 

“Like a condemned man on death row, he now has to face his executioners.”

As vultures circle Downing Street, now that Burnham is back as an MP, Starmer must realise that resigning is going to be better for the Labour Party than a humiliating forced exit. Like a condemned man on death row, he now has to face his executioners. The prime minister should brave up and face his fate with a dignified resignation. He has run out of places to hide from the fact that he no longer has the support of even his allies.