Andy Burnham has won the Makerfield by-election with a commanding majority, securing his return to Parliament and immediately fuelling speculation that he is positioning himself for a leadership challenge against Sir Keir Starmer.
The Labour Co-op candidate took 24,927 votes, or 54.8 per cent of the total, defeating Reform UK’s Robert Kenyon by a majority of 9,231 votes on a turnout of 58.75 per cent — a solid figure for a by-election. Kenyon finished second with around 15,696 votes, while Restore Britain, the new hard-right party linked to former Reform figures and led by Rupert Lowe, surprised many by finishing third with 6.8 per cent in its first electoral outing. The Conservatives and other candidates trailed well behind.
Burnham’s victory followed the resignation of sitting Labour MP Josh Simons, a move widely understood to have been engineered specifically to clear the way for the long-serving Mayor of Greater Manchester, often dubbed the “King of the North,” to return to Westminster. His return satisfies Labour’s internal rules governing eligibility for leadership contenders, a detail that has not gone unnoticed amid persistent speculation about Burnham’s ambitions.
Despite challenging national conditions for Labour, Burnham succeeded in increasing the party’s vote share in the constituency by around 9.6 percentage points compared to recent benchmarks — a result attributed largely to his personal popularity rather than any broader national momentum for the party. In his victory speech, Burnham framed the result as “a final chance to change” for Labour, emphasising hope over division and the priorities of the North.
Burnham will now formally resign as Mayor of Greater Manchester, triggering a separate mayoral by-election for the role he has held for several years. His return to Parliament is widely seen as setting the stage for a possible challenge to Starmer’s leadership, with reports suggesting more than 80 Labour MPs are supportive of such a move amid sustained pressure on the Prime Minister’s approval ratings.
Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner welcomed the result, describing it as voters choosing “hope.” Right-wing commentators, meanwhile, pointed to ongoing political scandals affecting the government as context for the contest, while also noting Reform UK’s strong second-place finish as evidence of continuing pressure on Labour from the right over issues including immigration.
Makerfield has been held by Labour for more than a century, making it one of the party’s safest traditional strongholds in Greater Manchester. The split in the right-wing vote between Reform UK and Restore Britain is likely to have contributed to the scale of Burnham’s victory, underlining the fragmentation currently affecting opposition to Labour at a local level even as questions persist about the party’s national leadership.
