Seventy thousand people will today determine the political future of the UK\u2019s 70 million inhabitants. The by-election in Makerfield, near Manchester, is in fact of significance that extends far beyond the north of England. If Andy Burnham, the Labour candidate, is elected as an MP, he will stand for the leadership of the party and the country, challenging Prime Minister Keir Starmer.<\/p>\n
Burnham, nicknamed \u2018the King of the North\u2019 due to the success he has enjoyed and the popularity he has gained during his ten years as mayor of Manchester, must first be elected as an MP before he can become leader. His return to Westminster after years away was facilitated by his ally Josh Simons, who was elected as the MP for Makerfield in the 2024 general election and stepped aside to allow Burnham to get back on track at national level.<\/p>\n
The mayor of Manchester has made no secret of his ambition to radically transform the Labour Party by shifting it to the left and revitalising it following the current government\u2019s paralysis. Starmer\u2019s position \u2013 who, according to all the polls, already held the dubious honour of being the most unpopular prime minister in history \u2013 has become even more precarious in recent weeks following the disastrous results of the local elections in May and the recent resignations of Defence Secretary John Healey and Health Secretary Wes Streeting. The latter announced yesterday that he will stand for the party leadership, possibly as early as next week, as a representative of the party\u2019s moderate wing against Burnham.<\/p>\n
Labour ministers and MPs have been campaigning in Makerfield in recent weeks, with a paradoxical call to vote Labour even though it could spell the end of the Starmer government. The Prime Minister is trying at all costs to avoid an internal conflict which, he said, \u2018would be bad for the country\u2019: for this reason, Starmer pointed out that Burnham\u2019s first duty, if elected, will be to support Labour in the campaign to elect the new mayor of Manchester. The Prime Minister has also offered Burnham an \u2018important role\u2019 in the Government should he be elected as an MP.<\/p>\n
The mayor of Manchester, who was born and raised in the area, is very popular and regarded as \u201cone of our own\u201d by the people of Makerfield, despite the numerous ministerial posts he has held in the past. A Labour victory, however, cannot be taken for granted, because Reform UK, the anti-immigration party founded by Nigel Farage, won over 50 per cent of the vote in the recent local elections in a constituency that had been a Labour stronghold for over forty years.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Seventy thousand people will today determine the political future of the UK\u2019s 70 million inhabitants. The by-election in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":644896,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[59,57,58,50,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-644895","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-kingdom","tag-gb","tag-great-britain","tag-greatbritain","tag-news","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/644895","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=644895"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/644895\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/644896"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=644895"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=644895"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=644895"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}