Andy Burnham wins Makerfield: Starmer rival sets up leadership fight with by-election victory

Andy Burnham swept to victory in a by-election that could send him to Downing Street as Britain's next prime minister.

He said the Labour Party had a “final chance to change” after his decisive win in Makerfield, setting up a showdown with Keir Starmer. Polls show Mr Burnham, 56, is Labour's most popular politician who would win a leadership contest decided by party members.

Allies of Mr Burnham called on the Prime Minister to hand over power after the "King of the North" defied national trends to increase Labour’s share of the vote in a seat where Nigel Farage’s Reform UK party made sweeping gains in last month’s local elections. Reform was expected to pose a serious challenge to Mr Burnham but could not repeat its nationwide successes.

Andy Burnham - Will it be third time lucky for 'King of the North' aiming for Downing Street?

Will it be third time lucky for 'King of the North' Andy Burnham?

In what could be the most consequential local election in decades, Mr Burnham defeated Reform’s Robert Kenyon by 9,231 votes, up from a majority of 5,399 that Labour secured in 2024. The party's vote share increased by 9.61 per cent.

Mr Starmer said on Friday he “will stand” in a Labour leadership contest should one be triggered when Mr Burnham returns to Westminster, adding he will not “walk away”.

The prime minister congratulated Mr Burnham on his win, saying “voters chose Labour’s campaign of hope and optimism over division and hate”.

He warned a leadership contest would “plunge us into chaos” and that Labour needs to now “pull together” for the by-election to replace Mr Burnham as Greater Manchester Mayor.

At the G7 summit in France this week, he said he wanted Mr Burnham to play a "big part" in government but the Burnham camp rebuffed the notion.

Race for No 10

Mr Burnham's victory means he will now be able to trigger or take part in a contest to replace Mr Starmer, struggling with some of the worst popularity ratings of any leader. But the key question is when and how Mr Burnham will do it.

Mr Starmer faces pressures to allow a “coronation” including a potential cabinet revolt. To trigger a leadership contest, Mr Burnham – who has twice unsuccessfully stood for the leadership – would need the support of 81 MPs, which he has already privately secured.

In his victory speech Mr Burnham, who served as a minister in the Tony Blair and Gordon Brown governments, urged his party to act now, saying there would be no second chance. “Everyone knows that politics isn’t working," he said. “Everyone can feel that the country isn’t where it should be. Tonight could, just could, be the turning point.”

In a direct message to Labour MPs, he said: “I do say to my own party: this is a final chance to change. This is what people said directly to me on the hundreds of doorsteps that I stood on. We must hear it, we must act upon it and we must get it right. There will be no second chance.”

Andy Burnham leaves The Edge, where votes were being counted., with his daughter and wife. Getty Images

Investors were closely watching the race given concerns that Mr Burnham, if he becomes leader, might shift to a looser fiscal policy than Mr Starmer and his chancellor of the exchequer, Rachel Reeves. Although Mr Burnham has said that his remarks last year about the country being “in hock” to bond markets were taken out of context, they continue to resonate with investors.

The cost of Government borrowing ticked slightly higher at the start of trading in London.

The 10-year yield on UK gilts - government bonds - rose by 0.04 percentage points to 4.80 per cent after the market opened.

The move was largely similar to changes in the value of European bonds on Friday morning and also comes after the ONS reported higher-than-expected government borrowing figures.

The value of the pound was roughly flat for the day at 1.320 versus the dollar. It had fallen by as much as 0.5 per cent following Mr Burnham's election but has seen these losses pull back entirely in recent hours.

Meanwhile, the FTSE 100 opened marginally lower, dipping by 0.06 per cent to 10,393.34 points.

Touchstone

Mr Burnham gave up his role of Greater Manchester mayor by becoming the Makerfield MP, winning the seat vacated by Josh Simons to allow him the chance to return to Westminster and seek to become prime minister.

In an attempt at addressing the assertion that he only stood in the by-election to further his own ambitions, he said: “It will never be a stepping stone to me, but instead will be my touchstone. A Makerfield test at the heart of British politics will make sure that the places Westminster has neglected will now get fairness.”

Newly elected Makerfield MP Andy Burnham greets a supporter after his by-election victory. Reuters

Decisive win

Mr Burnham won more than half of all votes cast, comfortably beating the combined total for second and third place parties Reform and Restore Britain. He won 54.8 per cent of the votes cast, outperforming all the opinion polls published during the campaign, none of which placed him above 50 per cent.

Mr Kenyon won 34.5 per cent of the vote, while Restore’s Rebecca Shepherd won 6.8 per cent. She was the only other candidate to get more than 5 per cent of the votes cast – the threshold needed to avoid losing the £500 ($658) deposit that all candidates have to pay to stand for election to parliament in the UK.

The Conservatives, Liberal Democrats and Greens, along with eight other candidates, all got less than 5 per cent of the vote and lost their deposit.

Turnout was 58.75 per cent, the highest for a parliamentary by-election in nearly seven years.

Mr Farage said he was “disappointed” with the party’s vote share and urged people who voted for Restore Britain to “think again”.

Cabinet minister Lisa Nandy said she wanted Mr Burnham “back at the top table”. She added: “What Andy’s shown here is that there is something that he brings, a willingness to go out and fight for the change that people need, to take on any system and any person who stands in the way and to be bold and to wear his heart on his sleeve, and people have responded.

“I think that with him back in the top team, at the top table, helping to drive that change. I think we’ll be in a really strong position.”

Leadership challenge

Mr Burnham has indicated he will not accept a job in Mr Starmer’s government. He is not expected to launch a leadership challenge immediately, instead hoping Mr Starmer will conclude that he has to give up the keys to No 10.

Two years after winning a landslide national election, Mr Starmer, 63, is one of the least popular British prime ministers since polling records began. Scandals, policy U-turns, and accusations of indecision have derailed the delivery of the change he once promised.

His party suffered heavy losses in local elections last month, while senior colleagues, including the defence and health minister, resigned over his leadership.

Mr Burnham’s supporters believe the scale of his victory will put increased pressure on Mr Starmer to stand down.

Former cabinet minister Louise Haigh urged the Prime Minister to set out an “orderly and managed transition” of power. She told the BBC she hoped Mr Starmer would “do what’s best for both the country and the Labour Party”.

But the Prime Minister has repeatedly insisted he has no intention of walking away from No 10 and is understood to have amassed a war chest to fund his campaign to fight a leadership challenge. He has the backing of a group of private donors, with fundraising having increased in the past two days and total pledges running into six figures, sources said.

Mr Burnham has indicated he would join a leadership contest if one was triggered, something that would require 81 MPs to line up behind a candidate. Former health secretary Wes Streeting has suggested he would be willing to fire the starting gun for a contest if Mr Starmer does not stand down.

Andy Burnham’s victory in the Makerfield by-election is proof that Labour needs to change to win, Wes Streeting said, signalling he wants to see Sir Keir Starmer ousted following the vote.

Writing on social media site X, Mr Streeting said: “Huge congratulations to Andy Burnham on an astonishing victory in Makerfield, where Labour lost badly only weeks ago.

“It gives us all hope that Labour can still win, but Andy’s campaign is proof that to do so we need to change."

Northern lad

If Mr Burnham were to win a leadership contest, he would become the seventh resident of Downing Street in a decade.

Local background

Raised in Culcheth, a Cheshire village between Manchester and Merseyside, he frequently references his working-class upbringing. His father worked as a BT engineer while his mother was employed as a GP receptionist. It was a Catholic household steeped in Labour loyalties, where Mr Burnham was politically radicalised by the miners’ strike in the 1980s.

By the age of 14 he had joined Labour, then went on to study English at the University of Cambridge, where he met his future wife Marie-France van Heel, who is Dutch. They have three children.

While he later admitted feeling like an “impostor” among his privately educated contemporaries at Cambridge, Mr Burnham’s northern identity has become an asset rather than a handicap. Obsessed with football, as an Everton supporter, and Manchester music – including The Smiths and The Stone Roses – he has cultivated an image of an approachable man who understands people.

He first entered parliament as an MP in 2001, then under Gordon Brown rose rapidly, becoming chief secretary to the Treasury, culture secretary, then health secretary by the age of 39.

While he served as shadow home secretary, it looked as if his career had run its course. But in 2017, possibly to escape the toxicity of the Jeremy Corbyn leadership, he took a risk and stood for mayor of Greater Manchester.

Here he found a role that suited both populist instincts and an appetite for visible change. His signature achievement was bringing buses back under local control, which now run on time, are affordable and are popular.

It was the Covid-19 pandemic that turned Mr Burnham into a national figure. During the bitter 2020 row over lockdown restrictions and financial support for northern England, Mr Burnham stood outside Manchester’s town hall and accused Boris Johnson, prime minister at the time, of treating the north with “contempt” by failing to give it enough financial backing.

That image of a northern politician facing down a former Etonian Tory prime minister resonated far beyond Labour circles, earning him the title of “King of the North”.

Polling expert John Curtice said Mr Burnham’s victory was not likely to lead to a nationwide surge in Labour’s popularity.

“Can this be replicated elsewhere? First thing to note, between them the Conservatives, the Greens and the Liberal Democrats got no more than 3 per cent of the vote," Mr Curtice told the BBC.

“I think one has to say that there are two crucial elements to Mr Burnham’s success. The first is the apparent readiness of those who are minded to vote for parties other than Reform, or indeed Restore Britain, their readiness to fall in and vote for Mr Burnham.

“The second element of Mr Burnham’s success is that in a sense he was riding two horses at once. He was both riding as the person who was trying to appeal to the traditional Labour vote … and he was also able to appeal to those who wanted to see the back of Keir Starmer.

“The question you have to ask yourself is when Mr Burnham becomes prime minister, how easy will that trick be to repeat? Because once he’s his own man, he’s not going to be able to campaign against himself in the way he’s campaigned against Keir Starmer."

Second upset

In the other Westminster by-election results the Tories secured victory in Aberdeen South, with Douglas Lumsden taking the seat vacated by the SNP’s former Westminster leader Stephen Flynn, who won election to the Scottish Parliament in May.

The campaign became a battle over the future of oil and gas, with the Conservatives, Reform and the SNP vying to persuade those in the city – dubbed the energy capital of Europe – they support the industry the most.

Mr Lumsden said: “I’m looking forward to getting down to Westminster and really banging the drum for Aberdeen and the oil and gas industry."

In Arbroath and Broughty Ferry the SNP’s Lara Bird held the seat vacated when Stephen Gethins became an MSP.