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The Makerfield Paradox
The Makerfield by-election will prove to be one of the most bizarre of modern British political history.
Reform are, unsurprisingly, campaigning on a ‘Get Starmer Out’ platform. But if they win - they will almost certainly not budge the Prime Minister.
The Labour candidate, however, is also campaigning on a ‘Get Starmer Out’ platform. Andy Burnham, the Labour candidate is running his campaign on the promise to overthrow the Labour Prime Minister - all the while, ostensibly backed by the Labour Prime Minister.
So, if you are a voter in Makerfield who absolutely hates what Labour are doing in Government - your best bet at stopping them is to vote Labour.
The candidates
A crowded right-wing is seemingly clearing the path for a straightforward Burnham victory. While Nigel Farage tries to sway the (remaining) Conservatives, ex-Tory Rupert Lowe is trying to steal the hard-right from Reform with his new venture, Restore Britain.
Restore is a political maelstrom of mish-mashed policies (among many contradictions is their plan to repeal all hate speech laws while apparently arresting hate preachers). You have to respect the purity of their populism: they’ll say absolutely whatever will rile up a certain demographic of ‘not-racist-but’ gammon, even if it’s completely unserious.
They are a gift to the Liberals among us: as well as forcing Farage towards the centre to differentiate himself, they are also siphoning off the Reform vote.
A golden rule in politics seems to be emerging: you can always count on the political extremes to eat themselves alive. Exactly as Jeremy Corbyn and Zarah Sultana did last year, it now seems likely that Rupert Lowe and Nigel Farage will get into the same tiff.
Current polls suggest Restore will pull enough voters from Reform to open the gate for Labour. This is good news for Labour’s fans, of course, but also good news for Labour’s enemies: Andy Burnham will try to unseat the Prime Minister and either succeed, or damage him and the party in the process.
Restore may choose to stand down in some kind of electoral pact, which could hand Reform the victory. (That is, unless Robert Jenrick decides to set up a new party called Renew or Reset or Regain etc).
Then what?
Assuming there is no electoral pact, Andy Burnham is likely to win Makerfield. On entering Parliament, he will almost certainly mount an immediate leadership challenge against Starmer.
As the challengers pull lumps out of one another, the Parliamentary Labour Party might finally see the light: this is exactly what brought down every governing party since Thatcher. The voters always vote against in-fighting and personality politics that leads to national instability.
I expect, in other words, that Starmer would win a leadership challenge no matter who is in it. The country would never back Angela Rayner, Wes Streeting is not fundamentally different, and Andy Burnham does not have the political credos to back up his personal ambition.
Despite Starmer’s weaknesses, of which there are many, the country is finally starting to see the green shoots of the Labour policy platform: immigration falling, cost of living abating, NHS performance improving.
A leadership contest will expose that the alternative candidates aren’t much better than Starmer. The Labour Party have a case of ‘the grass must be greener’. But peeping over the fence will reveal it’s a very similar shade: just with a Northern accent.
However, a leadership contest will do untold damage to the party. Whether they boot out Starmer or not, Labour has shown their hand: in it for themselves, obsessed with melodrama, career before country - and no better than the Tories. I still believe Starmer is not like that. It’s a shame his backbenchers and some Cabinet colleagues are not the same.
It’s hard to believe now because of the nosedive his popularity has since taken, but I think at the last election a lot of Brits lent their vote to Starmer, not to Labour.
Labour has pockets of talent, but the problem with the party will always be the majority of its members. Self-righteous, perma-campaigners for whom nothing is ever good enough, who’d rather be debating the clauses of their internal party position on socialism than getting into government, and who’d prefer to lose than win on a compromise.
Starmer looked like the man to change that. But if the Tories have ‘the men in grey suits’ who come to depose a Prime Minister, Labour has lefties in lanyards. They seem to be coming for Starmer, and they'll take Labour down with him.
In summation
Andy Burnham will hand the keys to Manchester to a Reform mayor. He’ll almost certainly lose the leadership contest (as he’s done many times before). He’ll do untold damage to the credibility of the Prime Minister, and to the Labour Party. He’ll be relegated to the backbenches where he’ll, in the style of Diane Abbott, snipe from the sidelines: causing further damage to a struggling party.
Burnham will be to thank for a right-wing victory at the next election.
(Here’s where you comment: “tell us how you really feel!”).
Burnham’s selfish maneuvering is Biden-esque: to him, being in the seat of power is more important than anything. In his mind, it simply must be him - and he can do all the same things and generate different results.
Labour only wins from the centre, and it only wins when the party is united.
Like Restore is a gift to Liberals, Burnham will prove to be a gift to the right and