Andy Burnham has won a parliamentary by-election that clears his path to challenge Prime Minister Keir Starmer for the leadership of Britain’s governing Labour Party.
The Greater Manchester mayor took the seat of Makerfield, in north-west England, with almost 55 per cent of the vote in the contest held on June 18, returning him to Westminster nine years after he left it.
Reform UK’s Robert Kenyon came second on 35 per cent, while the breakaway Restore Britain party finished third on 7 per cent. Burnham’s majority of 9,231 was Labour’s strongest result in the seat since 2017, on a turnout of 58.75 per cent.
The vote amounted to an unofficial referendum on Starmer, whose authority has been drained by heavy losses in May’s local and devolved elections and repeated calls for him to step down.
Under Labour rules, any challenger to the leader must be a sitting MP and win the backing of at least 80 of the party’s MPs. By regaining a Commons seat, Burnham has cleared the first of those obstacles.
A figure on the party’s Left and known as the “King of the North”, Burnham said the result “could, just could, be the turning point”. He cast the outcome as a verdict from voters in a region long neglected by the capital and as Labour’s final chance to change direction.
The seat fell vacant in May when its Labour MP, Josh Simons, stood down expressly to let Burnham run. It was the first time since 1965 that a by-election has been engineered to deliver a seat to someone outside Parliament.
Reform UK’s performance was its second strongest at any Westminster by-election, underlining the right-wing party’s advance even in Labour’s industrial heartlands.
His victory caps months of turmoil at the top of Labour, during which several senior figures have been touted as potential successors and the Prime Minister’s allies have manoeuvred to head off a contest. Starmer’s own ruling body had earlier blocked Burnham from standing in another by-election, a decision critics said only hastened the reckoning.
Starmer has said he would not resign and would resist any move against him. Burnham could act within days of being sworn in as an MP, according to reports, mounting the gravest threat yet to the Prime Minister’s authority.
