Burnham byelection: could Makerfield decide the next PM? – The Latest

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0:46Hannah Al-Othman:The senses, it feels quite positive for Andy Burnham. This is his home turf. And they've said, you know, he's a local lad. He's one of us. He understands what it's like. The Labour Party MP Josh Simons is standing down as the MP in Makerfield in the north-west and the Wigan area to make way for Andy Burnham. It's been harder to find support for reform than I thought, and I don't think that it's because there's support for Labour, but it's because there's support for Andy Burnham. It's not unanimous by any means, so that may change when reforms start turning up, throwing everything at it, as I'm sure they will.

1:23The Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham has found a route back to Parliament, but he needs to win a critical by-election burst that reform are set to throw the kitchen sink at. From the Guardians today in Focus, this is the latest with me, Lucy Hoth. Well I'm joined by Hannah L. Othman literally on the road in Makerfield where this very critical by-election is soon to take place where Josh Simons the Labour MP has agreed to stand down to pave the way for the Mayor of Greater Manchester to stand for a seat in Parliament. First of all Hannah just just tell me a bit about Makerfield what it's like as a constituency.

2:02Hannah Al-Othman:so makefield sort of on the outskirts of greater manchester is in the borough of wigan it's a whole different sort of political landscape to where we had that very recent by-election which was also in manchester in gorton and denton but this is very different the greens are not really in contention here it's likely to be a straight labour reform fight it's i suppose what you'd call your traditional working class Labour voters but you know it's it's exactly the type of place where reform has been gaining ground from Labour as opposed to say from the Conservatives. At the council elections last week reform won 24 out of 25 seats and the final seat went to an independent so Labour literally walked away with nothing and I think with any other candidate we would be anticipating that Labour wouldn't even be in contention, it would just be a fairly easy victory for reform.

3:00There's been discussion about there's really no such thing as a totally safe seat for Andy Burnham to run in in the Greater Manchester area anymore, given how strongly reform did in the elections last week. It must be a very surreal thing for the people living in the constituencies of Makerfield to suddenly have the eyes of the world, of the country on them as defining not just who could be the next Prime Minister, but also the future of the Labour government. What kinds of conversations are you having with people about the level of support they have for Andy Burnham?

3:31Hannah Al-Othman:Well, we're obviously in day one. The by-election's not even been called yet. Maybe, you know, day one and a half if you count yesterday. And there isn't that sense of by-election fatigue. So anyone who has lived somewhere, including me, I live in Leventune, which is in the Gorton and Denton constituency. so I'm speaking from first-hand experience very recent experience but anyone who has lived in somewhere with a very hotly contested by-election will know that people get sick of it quite quickly the sort of avalanche of literature leaflets people knocking on your door and of course all the journalists descending I can be one to talk but yeah we've not quite seen that yet everyone's really happy to chat it's a lovely sunny day most people want to talk to us And what are they telling you?

4:18Hannah Al-Othman:Well, the census, it feels quite positive for Andy Burnham. You know, if you look at the numbers, if you look at what happened last week, the majority at the 2024 election as well is only just over 5 ,000, which is, you know, pretty small in today's standards. But it's been harder to find support for reform than I thought. And I don't think that it's because there's support for Labour, but it's because there's support for Andy Burnham. This is his home turf. he lives just over the constituency border but people very much see him as being from here right obviously he's standing on his record as mayor people have talked about things that he's done around public transport but they've also they seem to have a sense that Andy Burnham is on their side and they've said you know he's a local lad he's one of us he understands what it's like to be a working class person he understands what it's like to be struggling to put food on the table these are literally like quotes from conversations that I've had today it's not unanimous by any means I've found people who are voting reform and I've also found people who are so disillusioned with Labour that even though they do quite like Andy Burnham they feel like they they can't vote and they're probably not going to vote at all right so that you know still you know as I say we're very very early days and there's everything to play for but I think there's more support here for Andy Burnham than I thought there might be from the outset it's definitely a tougher battle than some of the seats that were being talked about that he may run in and as you say there's no such thing as as a safe seat in Manchester you know they're all threatened by either reform or the greens but it does feel that you know he does stand a chance of winning this yeah because it wasn't Andy Burnham's first choice of where he would stand was it as you say it's got a sizable majority but not not huge to that 5 ,000 and Josh Simons the former director of Labour Together who's agreed to stand down we don't know the circumstances of what that pact might have been or what what's in it for Josh Simons but just to talk about the reform campaign Richard Tice of Reform UK was on the radio this morning and it just sounds like they are going to fight this as hard as they possibly can they don't want to repeat the mistakes of the Gorton and Denton by-election where they ran a sort of Reform UK celebrity in the form of Matt Goodwin.

6:42They want to find someone hyper-local, which I think sounds like it's to counter this idea that Andy Burnham is a real local lad who understands make a field.

6:53Hannah Al-Othman:You know, there were various other seats that were talked about. Again, so much of it is rumours. We don't know how much of this is true. But Afzal Khan's seat in Rush Home, that would have been a much easier one, I think for Burnham. Manchester Blakely, Graham Stringer's seat, that seat was also mentioned again. That's much safer. AFSAL's seat, probably that would have been a battle against the Greens and Stringer's seat would have been against reform. But reform, this is an easier contest for them than a lot of the seats that I've heard discussed. We're expecting a reform candidate to be announced potentially as early as Sunday.

7:31Okay.

7:31Hannah Al-Othman:You know, I was talking earlier to just some other journalists who are here today and we said, you know, it does feel very good for Andy Burnham at the minute, but also he's the one known candidate. So that may change when reforms start turning up, throwing everything at it, as I'm sure they will. Yeah. Regular trips from Nigel Farage to Makerfield, one imagines, another sort of reform top brass. In terms of the timetable, so you say Reform UK could have a candidate as early as Sunday, but what's the likely timetable ahead for when this by-election could take place? Because for Andy Burnham, time is really of the essence, isn't it?

8:08Hannah Al-Othman:I mean, I think everyone will probably want it done sooner rather than later. There are still various things to get in place. Josh Simons has to formally resign. The by-election has to be triggered. Labour have to select their candidate. You know, it's no guarantees for it to be Andy Burnham, but I do think he is the only candidate that really stands any chance of winning in this seat. So you would expect that Labour probably will. And then so we're looking at maybe six to eight weeks, I think, for a by-election. And I guess this is a tricky one for Labour's central command, isn't it? About how much resource and funding and public support Number 10's operation should put behind this by-election, given that this is the likely leadership challenger to the current prime minister.

8:54Do we know anything about that at this stage?

8:56Hannah Al-Othman:all indications from Labour are that they are going to they're going to really really fight this I think they will want to prove that they can beat reform they don't want to concede that ground so I think you know every indication that I've seen and heard from Labour is that they are really going to take that fight to reform despite the consequences of that yeah and and similarly Andy Burnham is leaving a very big job as mayor of Greater Manchester it looks very likely that he will do so. What are the sort of risks there? Is there any chance of a Reform UK candidate taking that job? Well, this is why this is one of the reasons why Labour wanted to block Burnham from standing in Gorton and Denton, because obviously, a parliamentary seat is one of 650.

9:45Hannah Al-Othman:The mayoral seat, you know, Manchester's arguably one of the most well, it is one of the most important in the country, arguably, I think that there are obviously a lot of factors. So Manchester city so there's 10 boroughs in in greater manchester one of them is manchester itself and that has the biggest population and is the biggest voting bloc and that voting bloc is more likely to vote for left-wing parties the outer boroughs are more likely to vote reform so mathematically it's not it's not an even split so you can look and say well these six boroughs all voted reform but it's actually not all weighted the same yeah and also labour is reintroducing the supplementary vote system so also people who may want to vote green or may want to vote for a smaller party you know they may then think well I'll put Labour second to try and stop that reform mayor so I think you know you can't predict everything in politics and everything's to play for but I think you know there is a good chance that Labour will hold that mayoralty even when it's vacated by Andy Burnham.

10:56Thanks, Hannah. It sounds like you've got a very busy few weeks ahead of you. Thank you so much.

11:00Hannah Al-Othman:Thank you. That's it for today. My huge thanks again to Hannah Al-Othman, our North of England correspondent. You can keep up with her reporting from Makerfield over at theguardian.com. And don't miss today's episode of Politics Weekly America, which you can now watch for the first time on YouTube. It's all about the midterms and whether the Democrats think they can flip the Senate blue. Thanks for listening to this episode of The Latest. Today in Focus will be back in your fees as usual on Monday morning. The Latest will be back on Monday night. Have a lovely weekend. This episode was presented by me, Lucy Hoff.

11:33It was produced by Sam Gruet. The senior producer was Bryony Moore. The lead producer was Zoe Hitch.

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