--- title: "This Man Just Ended Keir Starmer's Premiership" description: "Andy Burnham is on his way to Westminster.\n\nIn what was one of the most-watched by-elections in British history, the mayor of Greater Manchester—and aspiring Labour leader—won an outright majority in the Makerfield constituency last night, with an underwhelming night for the right-wing Reform UK party. Fresh off this win, Burnham has secured the one thing he was lacking to take over the Labour party: a seat in Parliament.\n\nIt might be a *bit* early to call it curtains for Starmer, but if we're being honest, this was probably one constituency the PM wouldn't have minded losing. He knows what's almost certainly coming now: a leadership challenge that could soon see him removed as prime minister.\n\nBut while it might be all celebrations in Burnham HQ today, the real work is just beginning—because replacing an unpopular party leader is one thing, but rescuing the Labour party from electoral oblivion is another entirely.\n\n## King of the North\n\nAlthough there were a couple of by-elections happening across the United Kingdom on Thursday, all eyes were on a single race: Makerfield. Or more specifically, the Labour candidate who was running in the constituency.\n\nAndy Burnham is the long-serving mayor of Greater Manchester, known by his fans as the King of the North. While in office, he's had repeated showdowns with past Conservative governments, accusing them of having forgotten the region entirely. This, combined with his broad successes in Manchester, have led to consistently high popularity ratings, at a time when \"Labour politician\" is increasingly synonymous in the public mind with the phrase \"shower of sh*t\".\n\nNow, the Makerfield race was always expected to go Burnham's way—it's part of Greater Manchester, after all. But still, the scale of his victory was quite impressive—he took a 20 point lead over the second-place Reform UK challenger, Robert Kenyon, and won an outright majority. In Britain's increasingly fractious, multi-party system, that's not an everyday occurrence.\n\nPart of the reason for this lead, and why so much attention had been placed on the race in the first place, isn't *just* because he's a popular Labour candidate running for a regular seat. On the contrary, this by-election was called in the first place as a way of getting Burnham into Parliament, specifically so he could challenge Starmer for the party leadership. And under the UK system, becoming leader of the party would make Burnham Prime Minister.\n\nKeir Starmer's polling numbers have been in free fall for the better part of a year now, and 2026 has been one blow after another to both him and the Labour Party as a whole. His approval rating has been hovering in the mid-twenties, with some polls pegging him as less popular than even *Liz Truss*. In the local elections held across the UK back in May, Labour was massacred—they lost control of some 35 councils, along with 1,500 councillors overnight.\n\nTo use an American term, it was a shellacking. Within days, 97 Labour MPs were calling on Starmer to resign or set a date to do so, and multiple members of his cabinet quit outright.\n\nBut wanting Starmer gone and actually *getting* him gone though are two very different things. If a Labour leader isn't willing to go, it's not quite as simple as it is for the Tory party. They can call an enforceable vote of no confidence, voted by secret ballot by Conservative MPs, and with a simple majority the leader is gone. Party votes of no confidence by MPs in the Labour Party *can* happen, but they're entirely for show with no enforcement mechanism.\n\nInstead, to *actually* get rid of Starmer, they'd have to bring a challenger forward and get at least twenty percent of Labour MPs to formally back him—no secret ballots allowed. That person, critically, must be a sitting MP for any of it to count. While there are certainly a few who would be more than happy to throw their hats in the ring—looking at you, Ed Miliband and Angela Rayner—neither of them have anywhere near as high of an approval rating as Burnham does.\n\nBoth have also spent time in Starmer's cabinet—Miliband is currently Secretary of State for Energy, and Rayner quit her former job as Deputy PM after a scandal emerged about underpaying taxes on her flat. In other words, they might be able to show voters that the party's ditching someone who's clearly unpopular, but he'd be replaced by people who have been key allies throughout much of his premiership.\n\nBurnham's biggest problem has been that he's not—or, we should say, wasn't—in Parliament. And that right there is what put Makerfield on the map last night: the entire race was dominated by the national question of what the future of the Labour party would look like. While Burnham hasn't explicitly said that he would challenge Starmer, it's widely seen as a given that this would be the result of him winning—something he didn't exactly try to downplay in his victory speech. He more or less told the audience that this is the party's do or die moment, saying:\n\n> \"When this borough went to the polls in May, it made a loud cry for change. In this campaign, we have begun to answer that, but I do say to my own party, this is a final chance to change… There will be no second chance.\"\n\nWe'll let that one speak for itself on his odds of challenging Starmer.\n\nOne of the more noteworthy headlines of the day has been just how much Reform underperformed—there was a 23 point swing from May's local elections to Labour, leading to Burnham's outright majority. This is a dramatic shift from where polls had the race: heading into this thing, it was supposed to be relatively close, with Burnham averaging somewhere around 45 percent to Kenyon's 41 percent. So it was a bit of a surprise to see him outperforming his Reform opponent by 20 points.\n\nThere are a few potential explanations for this. In one light, May's local elections can be seen as being excessively negative for Labour as a way to send a message to Starmer and his government that things weren't working, leading to a better than expected Reform showing.\n\nBurnham was also in the incredibly unusual position of being able to offer himself as *the* alternative to Starmer, while running on the Labour platform. A Reform MP would be merely a plus one amongst a sea of 649 others—but Burnham? If you wanted Starmer gone, whether you're right, left, or center, he was your guy in a way that none of the other parties really could be.\n\nWhatever the cause may be though, Andy Burnham has a clear mandate to sail into Westminster. But the honeymoon phase following this victory might be more short-lived than he'd like it to be—because the Labour Party has a lot more problems than just the man sitting at the top.\n\n## Code Green\n\nIt's not entirely clear just how fast Burnham will trigger a leadership contest after entering Westminster. Remember, this parliament is only two years into a five-year term. Given the way the polling's looking right now, nobody in Labour is exactly eager to call a general election—and there are concerns that a leadership race could trigger exactly that.\n\nThe PM has taken the brunt of the blame for Labour's less-than-stellar performance. Just how much of that is really his fault is something that we'll leave up to the British electorate—but if there is to be a leadership race between the two, it's not exactly a mystery who's going to win: one survey puts Burnham in the lead by 59 to 37 percent.\n\nUp to that point, it might seem like sunshine and roses for the King of the North, but after that point the skies are going to get as dark and cloudy as an average day in Wigan. The issues facing the Labour Party are far more structural than merely an unpopular leader—and even if Starmer does have some responsibility for the party's recent performance, it's difficult to see how swapping out the man on top will fix things.\n\nJust as the Conservatives stared down the barrel of right-wing insurgent parties for years before ultimately succumbing to them in 2024, so too is Labour now being threatened by the Greens. They're not a new party by any stretch of the imagination—they date all the way back to the '70s—but for many years, they barely made a dent on the national consciousness. They only won their first seat in the Commons in 2010, and their all-time high water mark was in the 2015 general election, where they took about four percent of the vote—which, in the UK's first past the post system, didn't translate to any additional seats. So they weren't exactly keeping Labour's strategists up at night.\n\nFast forward to 2026, and we're in a completely different world—under the new leadership of Zack Polanski, the Greens are consistently polling in the double digits, with a few outlier polls putting them as high as 19 percent. They're well to Labour's left on both economic and cultural issues too, so unlike Reform UK's eclectic ability to draw from cultural conservatives on both the left and the right, disaffected Labour voters are these guys' exclusive targets.\n\nNow remember, Starmer took over after the absolutely disastrous showing the Labour party had in the 2019 general election, the second time in a row that the hard-left Jeremy Corbyn led them to defeat. The thinking in the party was that they had to moderate—and to their credit, they did. They just haven't seen many benefits for doing so. When Labour won a landslide under Starmer in 2024, they did so with only a fractionally-higher vote share than Corbyn achieved in 2019.\n\nAnd yes, in most normal democracies, that sentence wouldn't make any sense. First past the post, people! Perhaps the only system in the world that can translate a third of the popular vote into two thirds of the seats in Parliament.\n\nFast forward to 2026, and that sharp move to the center now has Labour scrambling to cover their left flank, as it's resulted in a steady erosion to the Greens. Burnham runs to Starmer's left, which could help matters a bit—as mayor, he took Greater Manchester's buses back into public ownership, and is not shy about his desire to expand that to other basic services. At the same time though, he's also pledged to keep the same fiscal rules that Starmer governs by, which cap how much a government can borrow and spend—so any nationalization campaign under his leadership would inherently be quite limited in scope, and likely won't be enough to win back many Green voters.\n\nMuch of this is cumulative: back when they were polling at all of one percent, the Greens were kind of seen as a joke. Even if you were well to the left of Tony Blair, you probably still voted Labour anyway because there wasn't much of an alternative, unless you happened to live in a Tory-Lib Dem marginal. Now that the Greens are electorally viable, the days of leftwingers voting Labour out of habit are over.\n\nThe issue for Labour is that they can't go *full* Green. They have factions all their own, and if they move *too* far left to chase these fleeing voters, they'll risk losing their more-moderate voters to the Liberal Democrats—who have been all too eager to hoover up annoyed voters on both the center left and center right.\n\nFor evidence of this, look no further than the by-election last night in Aberdeen South—there, it was the *Tories* who pulled off a surprise upset, and by a big margin too. The race featured energy policy in a big way, and the Tories ran explicitly on a pro-oil and gas platform. Given the importance of that sector there, they were rewarded handsomely—the left of center Scottish Nationalists, who previously held the seat, finished more than twenty points behind, and Labour ended up placing fourth with just five percent.\n\nSo Labour finds itself squeezed from every direction at once—but if this looks troublesome for them, it's nothing compared to what we're seeing on the right.\n\n## Cracks on the Right\n\nIf you've been following British politics over the last few years, there's been one name that's just about impossible to ignore: Nigel Farage, the leader of the Reform UK party. Farage is no stranger to causing a commotion and starting new parties—he's been the leader of both the UK Independence Party, or UKIP, back in the early 2010s, and then launched the so-called Brexit Party back in 2019. Neither were very successful in terms of parliamentary seat performance, but they presented an omnipresent threat from the right to the Tories.\n\nAfter Boris Johnson withdrew Britain from the EU in 2020, the Brexit Party effectively rebranded as Reform UK, and has since made some *remarkable* inroads. By the time the 2024 general election rolled around, they were able to pull off 14 percent of the popular vote. It only handed them five seats—like I keep saying, first past the post, people!—but it split the right wing vote so dramatically that it devastated the Conservatives, and handed Starmer his huge parliamentary majority.\n\nSince then, Reform has continued to make serious inroads—topping the polls back in May last year, and holding onto that position ever since. PollCheck's average in mid-June gives Reform 27 percent, ahead of the Conservatives and Labour alike, both of whom have 19 percent. The centrist Liberal Democrats and left wing Greens both trail the rest with about 12 percent.\n\nThat's an absolutely *stunning* shift because of the history of the Conservative Party in the UK. While it may be more common for parties to come and go in a multi-party system, the UK has for over a century been governed as a largely two-party state. It's always been the Conservatives to the right, Labour on the left, and the Liberal Democrats trying to figure out a place between the two. And while other parties have dominated in Northern Ireland and Scotland, in the Westminster Parliament they've rarely made an impact—the sole exception was the Northern Irish DUP propping up Theresa May's government after she lost her majority in 2017.\n\nBut while Labour's dominance on the left goes back to the 1920s, the Conservatives have roots that stretch far further. By most reckonings, they're the oldest political party in the world, having grown out of a parliamentary grouping that first formed in the *seventeenth century*. They're also one of the most-successful. So to see their polling numbers today is shocking.\n\nIn Makerfield, for example, the Conservative candidate pulled down just *two* percent of the vote. Anyone who leaned right and seriously wanted to see Burnham defeated voted for Reform.\n\nBut when it comes to upstart rightwing parties cannibalizing the vote of their older, more-established peers, Reform isn't the only name worth mentioning. In an incredibly ironic twist, Reform is now also battling a populist-insurgent party that's devouring its right flank.\n\nThis is where Restore Britain enters the scene—not Reform, but Restore. I know, they're not winning any prizes for inventing naming here.\n\nRestore was only founded as a proper political party in February this year, and has one MP—Rupert Lowe, who defected from Reform shortly thereafter over a dispute with Nigel Farage. Since then, Restore has become a *very* online-oriented movement that largely consists of thinking that Reform UK has grown too establishment-oriented, too soft on migration—accusing them of \"watering down\" deportation policies, and accusing the party of being largely a protest movement.\n\nIn this light, Lowe—and his Restore Britain party—would be the real deal. He's willing to go much further than Reform is, especially on matters related to migration—calling for deportation of those not just in the country illegally, but to all foreign nationals who rely on benefits or social housing. He has also extended this to those who, in his view, have not fully integrated into British culture. Elon Musk, a guy who has apparently never seen a far right bandwagon he didn't want to leap onboard, posted that \"Only Restore Britain can save\" the country.\n\nGiven that the group's all of four months old, it was genuinely difficult to tell how well they'd do in their inaugural by-election. Both Restore and Reform pull from a similar base, so how much they'd split their overlapping vote was a huge focus going into this race. Farage's party found themselves in the position of arguing that a vote for Restore Britain was, given the first past the post system, a vote for Labour—an argument that's perfectly valid, but incredibly ironic given that he'd spent well over a decade *deflecting* the very same argument being leveled at his various parties by the Tories.\n\nHow the tables turn, huh?\n\nWhen the results were in, Restore finished with just shy of seven percent of the vote. That's a strong showing for a party so young, albeit not quite as well as their founder had said he'd hoped for—earlier that night in an interview with LBC, Lowe said he'd be thrilled to hit ten percent. Given the size of Burnham's majority in this race, even combining Reform's 34 percent, Restore's 7 percent, and the Tories' two percent wouldn't have gotten the right to where they needed to be, so the \"spoiler vote\" dynamic was averted here, at least for now.\n\nBut seven percent in four months is massive growth. Even if they cap out around here, they can still risk doing serious damage to Reform in the next general election—remember, Labour's enormous 2024 parliamentary majority was handed to them on account of Farage's party splitting the rightwing vote by taking just fourteen percent. A three way split, with Restore taking just five or so percent, could risk a scenario whereby Labour winds up winning constituencies that would've otherwise gone to Reform. Right now, the rightwing combined vote in Britain is sitting at roughly 50 percent. But the more options and parties multiply on the right, the harder it'll be for any of them to gain a parliamentary majority.\n\nIn Makerfield, though, that outcome was averted. With over fifty percent of the vote, Andy Burnham has emerged as the clear winner. Whatever happens next, the fate of UK politics is in his hands. Starmer's reign as prime minister, the Labour party's future, perhaps even the electoral prospects of Reform… all hinge on what the King of the North does next.\n\n## Key Takeaways\n\n- Andy Burnham won an outright majority in the Makerfield constituency, securing a seat in Parliament.\n- Burnham's victory is seen as a significant step towards challenging Keir Starmer for Labour leadership.\n- The Labour Party faces structural issues beyond Starmer's unpopularity, including threats from the Greens.\n- Reform UK underperformed in Makerfield, with a 23-point swing to Labour leading to Burnham's majority.\n- The right-wing political landscape is fragmented, with Reform UK and Restore Britain competing for votes.\n\n## Frequently Asked Questions\n\n### Who won the Makerfield by-election?\n\nAndy Burnham won the Makerfield by-election with an outright majority.\n\n### What is Andy Burnham's current position?\n\nAndy Burnham is the mayor of Greater Manchester and was elected as an MP in the Makerfield by-election.\n\n### What is the significance of Andy Burnham's victory in Makerfield?\n\nAndy Burnham's victory in Makerfield is significant because it gives him a seat in Parliament, which is necessary for him to challenge Keir Starmer for the Labour party leadership.\n\n### How did Keir Starmer's approval ratings fare recently?\n\nKeir Starmer's approval ratings have been in free fall, hovering in the mid-twenties, with some polls suggesting he is less popular than Liz Truss.\n\n### What challenges does the Labour Party face besides an unpopular leader?\n\nThe Labour Party faces structural issues and is threatened by the Greens, who are polling in the double digits and appealing to disaffected Labour voters.\n\n### What is the current political landscape on the right in the UK?\n\nThe right in the UK is fragmented with Reform UK and the newly formed Restore Britain party both challenging the Conservative Party.\n\n### How did the Reform UK party perform in the Makerfield by-election?\n\nThe Reform UK party underperformed in the Makerfield by-election, securing only 34% of the vote, far behind Andy Burnham's majority.\n\n### What is the potential impact of Restore Britain on the political scene?\n\nRestore Britain, a new right-wing party, could split the right-wing vote further, potentially benefiting the Labour Party in future elections.\n\n### What are the main issues facing the Labour Party according to the article?\n\nThe Labour Party faces issues such as an unpopular leader, structural problems, and threats from the Greens on the left and the Liberal Democrats in the center.\n\n### What is the current polling situation for the major political parties in the UK?\n\nAs of mid-June, Reform UK is polling at 27%, ahead of both the Conservatives and Labour, which are both at 19%. The Liberal Democrats and Greens are polling at around 12%.\n\n## Sources\n\n- [Original HomeFronts video: This Man Just Ended Keir Starmer's Premiership](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ShyYAFT2ydc)\n- [Hero image source](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/ac/Westminster_Bridge_and_Palace_of_Westminster_2026-05-04.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=original) by Wutthichai Charoenburi / openverse, by.\n\n## Related Coverage" url: https://homefronts.pub/article/this-man-just-ended-keir-starmers-premiership.md canonical: https://homefronts.pub/article/this-man-just-ended-keir-starmers-premiership datePublished: 2026-07-02 dateModified: 2026-07-02 author: - name: Simon Whistler url: https://homefronts.pub/author/simon-whistler publisher: HomeFronts image: "https://media.homefronts.pub/cdn-cgi/image/width=1600,height=900,fit=cover,quality=80,format=auto/articles/ShyYAFT2ydc/hero.jpg" type: NewsArticle contentHash: 09054520ba51bf930f59f7c18cd53f774429cc2680171ed8d738a8edd5696500 tokens: 5315 summaryUrl: https://homefronts.pub/article/this-man-just-ended-keir-starmers-premiership.md.summary.md --- Andy Burnham is on his way to Westminster. In what was one of the most-watched by-elections in British history, the mayor of Greater Manchester—and aspiring Labour leader—won an outright majority in the Makerfield constituency last night, with an underwhelming night for the right-wing Reform UK party. Fresh off this win, Burnham has secured the one thing he was lacking to take over the Labour party: a seat in Parliament. It might be a *bit* early to call it curtains for Starmer, but if we're being honest, this was probably one constituency the PM wouldn't have minded losing. He knows what's almost certainly coming now: a leadership challenge that could soon see him removed as prime minister. But while it might be all celebrations in Burnham HQ today, the real work is just beginning—because replacing an unpopular party leader is one thing, but rescuing the Labour party from electoral oblivion is another entirely. ## King of the North Although there were a couple of by-elections happening across the United Kingdom on Thursday, all eyes were on a single race: Makerfield. Or more specifically, the Labour candidate who was running in the constituency. Andy Burnham is the long-serving mayor of Greater Manchester, known by his fans as the King of the North. While in office, he's had repeated showdowns with past Conservative governments, accusing them of having forgotten the region entirely. This, combined with his broad successes in Manchester, have led to consistently high popularity ratings, at a time when "Labour politician" is increasingly synonymous in the public mind with the phrase "shower of sh*t". Now, the Makerfield race was always expected to go Burnham's way—it's part of Greater Manchester, after all. But still, the scale of his victory was quite impressive—he took a 20 point lead over the second-place Reform UK challenger, Robert Kenyon, and won an outright majority. In Britain's increasingly fractious, multi-party system, that's not an everyday occurrence. Part of the reason for this lead, and why so much attention had been placed on the race in the first place, isn't *just* because he's a popular Labour candidate running for a regular seat. On the contrary, this by-election was called in the first place as a way of getting Burnham into Parliament, specifically so he could challenge Starmer for the party leadership. And under the UK system, becoming leader of the party would make Burnham Prime Minister. Keir Starmer's polling numbers have been in free fall for the better part of a year now, and 2026 has been one blow after another to both him and the Labour Party as a whole. His approval rating has been hovering in the mid-twenties, with some polls pegging him as less popular than even *Liz Truss*. In the local elections held across the UK back in May, Labour was massacred—they lost control of some 35 councils, along with 1,500 councillors overnight. To use an American term, it was a shellacking. Within days, 97 Labour MPs were calling on Starmer to resign or set a date to do so, and multiple members of his cabinet quit outright. But wanting Starmer gone and actually *getting* him gone though are two very different things. If a Labour leader isn't willing to go, it's not quite as simple as it is for the Tory party. They can call an enforceable vote of no confidence, voted by secret ballot by Conservative MPs, and with a simple majority the leader is gone. Party votes of no confidence by MPs in the Labour Party *can* happen, but they're entirely for show with no enforcement mechanism. Instead, to *actually* get rid of Starmer, they'd have to bring a challenger forward and get at least twenty percent of Labour MPs to formally back him—no secret ballots allowed. That person, critically, must be a sitting MP for any of it to count. While there are certainly a few who would be more than happy to throw their hats in the ring—looking at you, Ed Miliband and Angela Rayner—neither of them have anywhere near as high of an approval rating as Burnham does. Both have also spent time in Starmer's cabinet—Miliband is currently Secretary of State for Energy, and Rayner quit her former job as Deputy PM after a scandal emerged about underpaying taxes on her flat. In other words, they might be able to show voters that the party's ditching someone who's clearly unpopular, but he'd be replaced by people who have been key allies throughout much of his premiership. Burnham's biggest problem has been that he's not—or, we should say, wasn't—in Parliament. And that right there is what put Makerfield on the map last night: the entire race was dominated by the national question of what the future of the Labour party would look like. While Burnham hasn't explicitly said that he would challenge Starmer, it's widely seen as a given that this would be the result of him winning—something he didn't exactly try to downplay in his victory speech. He more or less told the audience that this is the party's do or die moment, saying: > "When this borough went to the polls in May, it made a loud cry for change. In this campaign, we have begun to answer that, but I do say to my own party, this is a final chance to change… There will be no second chance." We'll let that one speak for itself on his odds of challenging Starmer. One of the more noteworthy headlines of the day has been just how much Reform underperformed—there was a 23 point swing from May's local elections to Labour, leading to Burnham's outright majority. This is a dramatic shift from where polls had the race: heading into this thing, it was supposed to be relatively close, with Burnham averaging somewhere around 45 percent to Kenyon's 41 percent. So it was a bit of a surprise to see him outperforming his Reform opponent by 20 points. There are a few potential explanations for this. In one light, May's local elections can be seen as being excessively negative for Labour as a way to send a message to Starmer and his government that things weren't working, leading to a better than expected Reform showing. Burnham was also in the incredibly unusual position of being able to offer himself as *the* alternative to Starmer, while running on the Labour platform. A Reform MP would be merely a plus one amongst a sea of 649 others—but Burnham? If you wanted Starmer gone, whether you're right, left, or center, he was your guy in a way that none of the other parties really could be. Whatever the cause may be though, Andy Burnham has a clear mandate to sail into Westminster. But the honeymoon phase following this victory might be more short-lived than he'd like it to be—because the Labour Party has a lot more problems than just the man sitting at the top. ## Code Green It's not entirely clear just how fast Burnham will trigger a leadership contest after entering Westminster. Remember, this parliament is only two years into a five-year term. Given the way the polling's looking right now, nobody in Labour is exactly eager to call a general election—and there are concerns that a leadership race could trigger exactly that. The PM has taken the brunt of the blame for Labour's less-than-stellar performance. Just how much of that is really his fault is something that we'll leave up to the British electorate—but if there is to be a leadership race between the two, it's not exactly a mystery who's going to win: one survey puts Burnham in the lead by 59 to 37 percent. Up to that point, it might seem like sunshine and roses for the King of the North, but after that point the skies are going to get as dark and cloudy as an average day in Wigan. The issues facing the Labour Party are far more structural than merely an unpopular leader—and even if Starmer does have some responsibility for the party's recent performance, it's difficult to see how swapping out the man on top will fix things. Just as the Conservatives stared down the barrel of right-wing insurgent parties for years before ultimately succumbing to them in 2024, so too is Labour now being threatened by the Greens. They're not a new party by any stretch of the imagination—they date all the way back to the '70s—but for many years, they barely made a dent on the national consciousness. They only won their first seat in the Commons in 2010, and their all-time high water mark was in the 2015 general election, where they took about four percent of the vote—which, in the UK's first past the post system, didn't translate to any additional seats. So they weren't exactly keeping Labour's strategists up at night. Fast forward to 2026, and we're in a completely different world—under the new leadership of Zack Polanski, the Greens are consistently polling in the double digits, with a few outlier polls putting them as high as 19 percent. They're well to Labour's left on both economic and cultural issues too, so unlike Reform UK's eclectic ability to draw from cultural conservatives on both the left and the right, disaffected Labour voters are these guys' exclusive targets. Now remember, Starmer took over after the absolutely disastrous showing the Labour party had in the 2019 general election, the second time in a row that the hard-left Jeremy Corbyn led them to defeat. The thinking in the party was that they had to moderate—and to their credit, they did. They just haven't seen many benefits for doing so. When Labour won a landslide under Starmer in 2024, they did so with only a fractionally-higher vote share than Corbyn achieved in 2019. And yes, in most normal democracies, that sentence wouldn't make any sense. First past the post, people! Perhaps the only system in the world that can translate a third of the popular vote into two thirds of the seats in Parliament. Fast forward to 2026, and that sharp move to the center now has Labour scrambling to cover their left flank, as it's resulted in a steady erosion to the Greens. Burnham runs to Starmer's left, which could help matters a bit—as mayor, he took Greater Manchester's buses back into public ownership, and is not shy about his desire to expand that to other basic services. At the same time though, he's also pledged to keep the same fiscal rules that Starmer governs by, which cap how much a government can borrow and spend—so any nationalization campaign under his leadership would inherently be quite limited in scope, and likely won't be enough to win back many Green voters. Much of this is cumulative: back when they were polling at all of one percent, the Greens were kind of seen as a joke. Even if you were well to the left of Tony Blair, you probably still voted Labour anyway because there wasn't much of an alternative, unless you happened to live in a Tory-Lib Dem marginal. Now that the Greens are electorally viable, the days of leftwingers voting Labour out of habit are over. The issue for Labour is that they can't go *full* Green. They have factions all their own, and if they move *too* far left to chase these fleeing voters, they'll risk losing their more-moderate voters to the Liberal Democrats—who have been all too eager to hoover up annoyed voters on both the center left and center right. For evidence of this, look no further than the by-election last night in Aberdeen South—there, it was the *Tories* who pulled off a surprise upset, and by a big margin too. The race featured energy policy in a big way, and the Tories ran explicitly on a pro-oil and gas platform. Given the importance of that sector there, they were rewarded handsomely—the left of center Scottish Nationalists, who previously held the seat, finished more than twenty points behind, and Labour ended up placing fourth with just five percent. So Labour finds itself squeezed from every direction at once—but if this looks troublesome for them, it's nothing compared to what we're seeing on the right. ## Cracks on the Right If you've been following British politics over the last few years, there's been one name that's just about impossible to ignore: Nigel Farage, the leader of the Reform UK party. Farage is no stranger to causing a commotion and starting new parties—he's been the leader of both the UK Independence Party, or UKIP, back in the early 2010s, and then launched the so-called Brexit Party back in 2019. Neither were very successful in terms of parliamentary seat performance, but they presented an omnipresent threat from the right to the Tories. After Boris Johnson withdrew Britain from the EU in 2020, the Brexit Party effectively rebranded as Reform UK, and has since made some *remarkable* inroads. By the time the 2024 general election rolled around, they were able to pull off 14 percent of the popular vote. It only handed them five seats—like I keep saying, first past the post, people!—but it split the right wing vote so dramatically that it devastated the Conservatives, and handed Starmer his huge parliamentary majority. Since then, Reform has continued to make serious inroads—topping the polls back in May last year, and holding onto that position ever since. PollCheck's average in mid-June gives Reform 27 percent, ahead of the Conservatives and Labour alike, both of whom have 19 percent. The centrist Liberal Democrats and left wing Greens both trail the rest with about 12 percent. That's an absolutely *stunning* shift because of the history of the Conservative Party in the UK. While it may be more common for parties to come and go in a multi-party system, the UK has for over a century been governed as a largely two-party state. It's always been the Conservatives to the right, Labour on the left, and the Liberal Democrats trying to figure out a place between the two. And while other parties have dominated in Northern Ireland and Scotland, in the Westminster Parliament they've rarely made an impact—the sole exception was the Northern Irish DUP propping up Theresa May's government after she lost her majority in 2017. But while Labour's dominance on the left goes back to the 1920s, the Conservatives have roots that stretch far further. By most reckonings, they're the oldest political party in the world, having grown out of a parliamentary grouping that first formed in the *seventeenth century*. They're also one of the most-successful. So to see their polling numbers today is shocking. In Makerfield, for example, the Conservative candidate pulled down just *two* percent of the vote. Anyone who leaned right and seriously wanted to see Burnham defeated voted for Reform. But when it comes to upstart rightwing parties cannibalizing the vote of their older, more-established peers, Reform isn't the only name worth mentioning. In an incredibly ironic twist, Reform is now also battling a populist-insurgent party that's devouring its right flank. This is where Restore Britain enters the scene—not Reform, but Restore. I know, they're not winning any prizes for inventing naming here. Restore was only founded as a proper political party in February this year, and has one MP—Rupert Lowe, who defected from Reform shortly thereafter over a dispute with Nigel Farage. Since then, Restore has become a *very* online-oriented movement that largely consists of thinking that Reform UK has grown too establishment-oriented, too soft on migration—accusing them of "watering down" deportation policies, and accusing the party of being largely a protest movement. In this light, Lowe—and his Restore Britain party—would be the real deal. He's willing to go much further than Reform is, especially on matters related to migration—calling for deportation of those not just in the country illegally, but to all foreign nationals who rely on benefits or social housing. He has also extended this to those who, in his view, have not fully integrated into British culture. Elon Musk, a guy who has apparently never seen a far right bandwagon he didn't want to leap onboard, posted that "Only Restore Britain can save" the country. Given that the group's all of four months old, it was genuinely difficult to tell how well they'd do in their inaugural by-election. Both Restore and Reform pull from a similar base, so how much they'd split their overlapping vote was a huge focus going into this race. Farage's party found themselves in the position of arguing that a vote for Restore Britain was, given the first past the post system, a vote for Labour—an argument that's perfectly valid, but incredibly ironic given that he'd spent well over a decade *deflecting* the very same argument being leveled at his various parties by the Tories. How the tables turn, huh? When the results were in, Restore finished with just shy of seven percent of the vote. That's a strong showing for a party so young, albeit not quite as well as their founder had said he'd hoped for—earlier that night in an interview with LBC, Lowe said he'd be thrilled to hit ten percent. Given the size of Burnham's majority in this race, even combining Reform's 34 percent, Restore's 7 percent, and the Tories' two percent wouldn't have gotten the right to where they needed to be, so the "spoiler vote" dynamic was averted here, at least for now. But seven percent in four months is massive growth. Even if they cap out around here, they can still risk doing serious damage to Reform in the next general election—remember, Labour's enormous 2024 parliamentary majority was handed to them on account of Farage's party splitting the rightwing vote by taking just fourteen percent. A three way split, with Restore taking just five or so percent, could risk a scenario whereby Labour winds up winning constituencies that would've otherwise gone to Reform. Right now, the rightwing combined vote in Britain is sitting at roughly 50 percent. But the more options and parties multiply on the right, the harder it'll be for any of them to gain a parliamentary majority. In Makerfield, though, that outcome was averted. With over fifty percent of the vote, Andy Burnham has emerged as the clear winner. Whatever happens next, the fate of UK politics is in his hands. Starmer's reign as prime minister, the Labour party's future, perhaps even the electoral prospects of Reform… all hinge on what the King of the North does next. ## Key Takeaways - Andy Burnham won an outright majority in the Makerfield constituency, securing a seat in Parliament. - Burnham's victory is seen as a significant step towards challenging Keir Starmer for Labour leadership. - The Labour Party faces structural issues beyond Starmer's unpopularity, including threats from the Greens. - Reform UK underperformed in Makerfield, with a 23-point swing to Labour leading to Burnham's majority. - The right-wing political landscape is fragmented, with Reform UK and Restore Britain competing for votes. ## Frequently Asked Questions ### Who won the Makerfield by-election? Andy Burnham won the Makerfield by-election with an outright majority. ### What is Andy Burnham's current position? Andy Burnham is the mayor of Greater Manchester and was elected as an MP in the Makerfield by-election. ### What is the significance of Andy Burnham's victory in Makerfield? Andy Burnham's victory in Makerfield is significant because it gives him a seat in Parliament, which is necessary for him to challenge Keir Starmer for the Labour party leadership. ### How did Keir Starmer's approval ratings fare recently? Keir Starmer's approval ratings have been in free fall, hovering in the mid-twenties, with some polls suggesting he is less popular than Liz Truss. ### What challenges does the Labour Party face besides an unpopular leader? The Labour Party faces structural issues and is threatened by the Greens, who are polling in the double digits and appealing to disaffected Labour voters. ### What is the current political landscape on the right in the UK? The right in the UK is fragmented with Reform UK and the newly formed Restore Britain party both challenging the Conservative Party. ### How did the Reform UK party perform in the Makerfield by-election? The Reform UK party underperformed in the Makerfield by-election, securing only 34% of the vote, far behind Andy Burnham's majority. ### What is the potential impact of Restore Britain on the political scene? Restore Britain, a new right-wing party, could split the right-wing vote further, potentially benefiting the Labour Party in future elections. ### What are the main issues facing the Labour Party according to the article? The Labour Party faces issues such as an unpopular leader, structural problems, and threats from the Greens on the left and the Liberal Democrats in the center. ### What is the current polling situation for the major political parties in the UK? As of mid-June, Reform UK is polling at 27%, ahead of both the Conservatives and Labour, which are both at 19%. The Liberal Democrats and Greens are polling at around 12%. ## Sources - [Original HomeFronts video: This Man Just Ended Keir Starmer's Premiership](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ShyYAFT2ydc) - [Hero image source](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/ac/Westminster_Bridge_and_Palace_of_Westminster_2026-05-04.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=original) by Wutthichai Charoenburi / openverse, by. ## Related Coverage