Despite its woeful polling figures at a national level in Britain, the Labour Party’s political machine is not dead yet. Last night, the by-election in Makerfield, in the north of England, saw Labour’s Andy Burnham score a triumphant victory. He won 54% of the vote, far ahead of Reform U.K. with 34%, and Restore Britain in a distant third place with 7%.
This was billed as the most important and consequential by-election in recent British history. In some respects, the result itself is unremarkable. The Labour Party held on to a seat that it had won comfortably for decades. Indeed, it has secured well over 50% of the vote in Makerfield since the 1980s. The party ran a strong candidate with huge local name recognition and the only Labour politician with strong personal approval ratings.
However, this election was not just about Labour holding on to one of its seats in its northern heartlands. It was also a vote about the future of the government. Andy Burnham is tipped to become the next Prime Minister in short order. He was standing on a platform to replace Sir Keir Starmer and hopes that he will have enough Labour MPs supporting him to mount a challenge once he lands in Parliament on Monday. He has assembled a team of advisers from the Left of the Labour Party and is expected to take the party in a more redistributive direction, if that is at all possible.
The country’s fiscal situation remains precarious, and there is a febrile atmosphere around immigration. Burnham has attempted to preempt this by stating he will stick to existing fiscal constraints and not loosen immigration policy. Whether this holds in reality remains to be seen. Without any plan or vision for government beyond “I am not Keir Starmer,” it seems very likely that a Burnham-led government will encounter exactly the same problems as the one currently led by the flailing premier. Tax and spending choices have become zero-sum, and the Labour Party is an ungovernable caucus, split between those who want to spend more on welfare and immigrants and those who want to repair the country’s finances and Britain’s ailing defense capability. So, we should expect much the same as now, just with a northern accent.
The political picture is more interesting. The result is undoubtedly disappointing for Reform U.K. In last month’s local elections, Nigel Farage’s party swept the board in the same area. Considering the demographics of the seat — 95% white, Brexit-voting, and a strong Reform performance in 2024 — many expected it to be an easy result for Reform, especially considering its national polling numbers. That Reform fell far behind Labour is a cause for concern.
Some will blame it on poor candidate selection. Rob Kenyon, a local councillor and plumber, was thrown into the brutal scrutiny of a by-election relatively unprepared and burdened by a checkered social media history that was used against him with brutal effectiveness by Labour and the activist organization Hope Not Hate. Others may say it is a sign of how Left-wing voters are tactically voting against Reform. The Liberal Democrats and Greens barely registered. This is not to suggest there was formal cooperation between Left-wing parties, but it is clear that there is a “stop Reform” tendency among them.
This takes us to Restore Britain. For all the international attention, money from Elon Musk, activists mobilized in the constituency, and hype following early canvassing returns in the campaign, Restore secured around 3,000 votes. This was far smaller than the gap between Labour and Reform. Indeed, on the final day of campaigning, the Labour Party sent the same number of activists to get out the vote in Makerfield that Restore had in actual counted votes. Yet while Restore has performed far below expectations, it is clearly a problem for Reform. In a by-election where Reform should have focused its efforts against Burnham and against Labour for their mismanagement of the economy and the borders, Reform spent most of the campaign defending its Right flank against Restore.
The more time Reform has to devote to winning over voters from Restore, the harder it is to build the necessary coalition of voters towards the center ground to win national elections. Though the Conservative Party all but vanished in Makerfield, it remains resilient in prosperous rural seats and parts of Scotland. This is the landscape that Reform must navigate over the next couple of years, and it is not an easy one.
Though it is highly unlikely that Burnham’s victory could be replicated elsewhere — his local popularity and the fact he was campaigning to replace Starmer were unique ingredients to this contest — last night’s by-election will re-energize a weak Labour Party for the time being. However, the fundamentals have not changed. The public will sour on Burnham’s empty agenda and remember how unpopular he was last time he was a national figure in 2010. Normal service will resume: taxation, regulation, censorship. The usual. The question for Reform is whether they can squeeze their rivals on the Right in time for a general election, or whether it is too little, too late.
***
Fred de Fossard is Director of Strategy at the Prosperity Institute.