Andy Burnham could be gifted his path back to Westminster by Restore Britain’s decision to stand in Makerfield — with Reform UK warning that Rupert Lowe’s splinter party is fracturing the right-wing vote at precisely the moment it matters most.
The first Survation poll of the 18 June by-election, published in The Sunday Times, puts Burnham on 43 per cent against Reform UK’s Robert Kenyon on 40 per cent — a gap of just three points. Restore Britain, the new party founded by former Reform MP Lowe, takes seven per cent. Simple arithmetic tells the story: if even half of Restore’s support shifted to Reform, Kenyon would overtake Burnham and deal a seismic blow to Labour’s leadership calculations.
The scale of the problem for the right becomes even clearer on a generic ballot. Without candidate names attached, Reform leads Labour by eleven points in Makerfield — a constituency where Reform won all eight council wards last month with around 50 per cent of the vote. In any normal political environment, this would be a comfortable Reform gain. Instead, Burnham’s personal popularity is single-handedly closing that gap — and Restore Britain is doing the rest.
Reform’s Kenyon has made no attempt to hide his frustration, saying bluntly: “Only Reform UK can beat Labour in Makerfield and stop Andy Burnham from using our community as a stepping stone into Downing Street.” His campaign’s argument is straightforward — every vote for Restore is a vote that keeps Burnham in contention. Restore, for its part, insists it is mobilising disillusioned non-voters who would not otherwise have turned out for Reform, and that the split is not as damaging as its rivals claim. The poll data does not obviously support that argument.
The stakes could not be higher. Survation found that Labour had a 64 per cent chance of winning the seat with Burnham as candidate and zero chance without him — a figure that captures just how much of Labour’s position rests on one man’s personal vote rather than the party’s standing. A More in Common poll has separately suggested an Andy Burnham-led Labour Party could beat Reform UK nationally, giving him an eight-point polling boost over Keir Starmer. A Burnham win in Makerfield would accelerate pressure on Starmer to go and hand his most credible challenger a platform he currently lacks.
If elected, Burnham would be required to resign as Mayor of Greater Manchester, triggering a separate mayoral by-election — a significant sacrifice that underlines the seriousness of his ambitions. Whether Restore Britain’s continued presence in the contest ultimately makes that sacrifice unnecessary for him is now the defining question of the campaign.
