In Makerfield for the byelection that could change everything

0:00This is The Guardian.

0:08Today, the by-election that could change everything.

0:19Today in Focus is supported by Paramount+. The Agency. All episodes streaming June 21st on Paramount+. In the world of espionage, truth is a moving target, and every decision carries a dangerous consequence. This new mission explores what it means to live as a double agent. Twice the lies, twice the risk. The lines between ally and enemy blur like never before, and survival depends on trusting no one. Starring Michael Fassbender, Geoffrey Wright, Jodie Turner-Smith and Richard Gere. Don't miss The Agency. All episodes streaming June 21st on Paramount+.

1:21Even if you consider yourself quite up on your politics, be honest, you probably hadn't heard of Makerfield until about a month ago. I was North of England editor for more than a decade before joining Today in Focus, and even I had never been there. It was only in Wigan, the other side of Greater Manchester from where I live. It's a place that doesn't often make national news. Then this happened. In the last hour, the mayor of Greater Manchester, Andy Burnham, has made his move. The MP for Makerfield, Josh Simons, has agreed to stand aside for him. Ever since Simons stepped down, Makerfield has been besieged by reporters, pollsters and canvassers, and your favourite daily news podcast.

2:05Excuse me. Hiya. We're journalists from The Guardian. I'm doing a story about the bail election. We're like the fifth journalist, you know. There's just people walking around all the time, and then you're seeing the likes of Nigel Farage unwillingly. You can't go into Ashton about getting hounded by them all. Not everyone has made their mind up yet ahead of Thursday's vote. I'm 50-50 between Andy Burnham and reform. Me and my wife are really torn and it will go down to the last day. But everyone has an opinion. All I want to say is reform sucks. Reform sucks? The stakes could barely be higher.

2:40I can't remember a more consequential by-election. If Andy Burnham wins, he will launch a leadership bid to, as he would see it, save the Labour Party. I think West Streeting seems to have launched a leadership contest. So if that is running, I would seek to join it. But if reform wins, Nigel Farage will be mentally measuring up the curtains in Downing Street himself. Are you talking to the next Prime Minister? I think so, yes.

3:09From The Guardian, I'm Helen Pitt. Today in Focus, on the ground in Makerfield.

3:18So we've just arrived in Ashton in Makerfield, which gives this constituency its name. And we are here to talk to people to see how they're feeling about this by-election. Are they already fed up of being vox-popped by people like us? Excuse me. I love your t-shirt. We are beautiful and an idiot at the same time. Yeah, Jack Brill. We're journalists from The Guardian. We're making a podcast about this by-election. Have you heard about it? Oh, how can you not hear about it? I mean, it's ridiculous. Are you going to vote? I am going to vote. Yeah, and have you decided who? Oh, yeah, I'll be voting Labour, anything to keep reform out.

3:54Really? Okay. And what do you make of Andy Burnham choosing this place? Not just to return to Parliament, but potentially to get to Downing Street. I think it is a stepping stone to Downing Street, but then equally I think Burnham actually cares about places like this. He's from places like this, he knows what he's talking about, He'd done it before in Lee, so it kind of makes sense.

4:21Lee is Andy Burnham's old constituency, the one he represented for 16 years before he left Westminster to become the mayor of Greater Manchester in 2017. It's next door to Makerfield, which is a collection of towns south of Wigan, on the border between Greater Manchester, Merseyside and Lancashire. You can live a good life here without earning a fortune. More than 70 % of residents own their homes, and you can buy a four-bed semi for under£300 ,000. Almost everyone here, 97%, is white. The constituency in various forms has sent Labour MPs to Parliament for more than 100 years. At the last general election, Josh Simons won a 5 ,399 majority for Labour.

5:02Reform came second then, fielding local plumber Robert Kenyon, who's standing again in the by-election. This time round, tactical voting is a big thing. With people voting for what they consider the least worst choice. Has she got a finger? Do you want to speak to you about the by-election coming up? Do you know about it? Like this mother and daughter we met walking home from after-school club. Brace yourself for the best-informed seven-year-old in the north of England. And who are you going to vote for? I think it'll probably be Labour this time round, but it's not necessarily because I overly want to.

5:36I think it's just really, there's a two horse race and I think it comes down to the strategic voting which I don't like to do but I think kind of hands are tied it's either, you know, them or the worst scenario If you were voting just absolutely with your heart not voting strategically in any way not tactically voting, which party would it be? It'd probably be green It's been green in the past, it was green at the last one I just don't think in this situation we stand a chance if I'm being honest It would feel like a wasted vote, would it? Yeah, so your priority is to stop Nigel Farage. Right, so if you were voting, maybe Labour.

6:13I would go for green if I had a choice, same with mummy. I don't really like Labour, but if I could vote, since it's kind of a one-horse race and reform sucks, I would probably go for Labour. Reform sucks? Why do you say that? Because they lie all the time. All they want is to be in power. they say that they're going to give hospitals and policemen when really, where's all that money coming from? And how do you know so much about politics? Is this at school or do you learn this at home? No, I learn this at home because I actually want to be Prime Minister when I grow up to help the animals. In Ashton, we meet a couple, John and Lisa, who are going for lunch with their two-year-old son.

6:54John says he's voting Labour. Who do you go for? Labour. Andy Burnham. Really? What about Andy Burnham? Well, actually, he says he's voting for Andy Burnham. He's less sold on the current incarnation of the Labour Party. What about Keir Starmer don't you like? I just, I feel as though he seems to be focusing on a lot of the wrong things. Like what? Like, you know, it came straight, like, the winter fuel allowance catastrophe with the pensioners. You know, I understand the things, but I feel like there's more important things to focus on. How easy is it to manage at the moment, financially? We were talking about this last night.

7:28We were literally having this conversation yesterday, weren't we? and it's like quite lucky yeah we're quite lucky and I am way above the average salary and even my money goes like I was talking about when we're taking the mortgage out take the bills out take the telly out and all that it's like there's not a lot left I don't know how people who aren't on as much as I'm on manage to make ends meet treating the kids after we're layers and layers and layers in the house because they can't just run the heat in it's sad it is really tough and that's one of the reasons why I sort of I would like Andy Burnham to get in because maybe you can make a bit of a difference because the thing is, it's like, you know, Starmer, Farage, it feels as though they're very out of touch with the average person in the street.

8:10I just feel like Andy Burnham's sort of the only breath of fresh air that's not going to either turn us into a mini-USA or just keep letting things get worse.

8:30Josh Halliday, you're the North of England editor of The Guardian, my old job. Now, Makerfield is a leave voting area. It's former Labour heartlands, a bit red wall-y, the kind of place where reform has been doing really well in the last couple of years. And to add to that, if you look at the national polls, reform really should win this by-election. There was a YouGov poll last week which put reform on 25 % and the Tories and Labour were tied on 19 % in second place. Do you think, though, that we should actually be paying any heed at all to the national polls when we're looking at Makerfield in particular?

9:05Well, reform have been heading the polls now nationally for quite some time. But in Makerfield, I really think it's a completely different picture. You've got a Labour Party that is much more popular because its candidate is not tied to this Labour government. He's always not running as a Labour candidate, I would say. He's like Vote for Andy. Vote for Andy, it's all about us, we together. Vote Labour to change Labour. You look at the sort of advertisements that Andy's put out with the illustrator Stanley Chow's graphic of him, our Andy, you know, Andy's for us, we're for him, vibrant colours.

9:41They've made it feel like they are the underdogs, which is weird because they're the party of government. It's not like any by-election I've ever covered, probably not for you either. It's really unique. And I guess Andy Burnham seems to be able to transcend the Labour Party. He's one of the few politicians in the country that has a net positive approval rating. When Labour Party members are polled, they always say that he is their favourite choice to be the leader of the party. So he does seem to be able to really rise above everything that's swirling around the Labour Party or has done ever since the general election two years ago.

10:19It's quite incredible, really. And I mean, I think a lot of that is down to the fact that he hasn't been in Westminster for the best part of a decade. He's not tarnished with the sort of chaos and this perception that government can't get stuff done. He's been up in Greater Manchester. He's been able to get things done, which he never tires of telling people about. And he has this sort of ability to connect with ordinary people and really speak of this message of, you know, the country isn't working for ordinary people. And that is the message of our time. Burnham does get his one. I know there's a lot of people complaining that he's a career politician and he just wants to be PM.

10:55But then ultimately, does having a local lad, SRPM, hurt us? It'd be nice to have someone who is Northern rather than a Southerner with a Southern agenda. So if he does get his wish, I can't see how it could really be any worse for us. Well, I did vote reform last time, but I liked Burnham. Burnham was all right when he was at Lee. Right, OK. Yeah, he did all right in Manchester, but I don't know if I've changed my vote yet or not. Do you think Andy Burnham would be a good Prime Minister? Would he do it up here? If he can do it down there and bring it up here, yeah. Because I think we get left behind when it comes down to, you know, the North gets left behind a lot.

11:33But I think he is for the North. It doesn't hurt that Burnham has lived in the area so long that half of the voters seem to have met him, or at least seen him out and about. Andy Burnham's from around here. He's from around where I live. He sent his kids to the high school right next to me, next to my old high school. And this college. And he went, yeah, his kids went to this college. He saw directly how it has affected his kids, how it's affected him since he's, again, lived in the area. I think he's four and he wants to actually try benefit it. I know Andy Burnham from... He's been in my house, to be honest with you.

12:07Has he? His daughter went to school, my daughter. Oh, yeah. I don't know him personally, but he has been in my house. What, to pick his daughter up? Yeah, yeah. We've had a chat and blah, blah, blah. and I do like what he did with Greats of Manchester. Whatever he's ever said to the public in Wigan, Lee, Manchester, what he said he's going to do, he's done. But he also has not said what he will do with the vote situation. Right. And I think the vote situation is going to sway the vote. Reform, I do like the thought of, most people want to stop these votes, don't they? That's the main thing. So they're saying all the right things on that situation.

12:51If there's one issue that has loomed largest over this by-election, it is immigration. Two tragedies have poured fuel on the debate. First, the murder of Henry Novak in Southampton, who bled to death after being handcuffed while his murderer, a Sikh man, lied to police. And then last week, a Sudanese refugee was charged with attempting to murder a man in Belfast. Here's Burnham's response to the attack at Hustings that were organised by the Manchester Evening News. The facts are that you can be deported after an incident of this kind. The individual concerned, I believe, has leave to remain. That can be revoked.

13:27The final thing I would say, though, is it's never the answer to violence like this to then produce more violence on the streets. Violence that attacks people's homes or public transport. Politicians and their words have consequences, and we've got to move back from a society where we're stoking up further problems with violence meeting more violence on our streets. Many people we meet in the constituency, a constituency which, remember, is 97 % white, are exercised by immigration, particularly small votes. Yeah, so we've seen your reform board outside. Why are you voting reform? Because I'm actually, well, peed off, I'll put it politely, with every other party.

14:07And previously, were you ever a Labour supporter? Yeah, my mother and father would kill me if they were still alive for voting anything but Labour. Wow. And now you've got to the point you're actually promoting a different party outside. Yeah, I would, yeah. I'd promote them all the way. Even if we lose this, I'd still vote for them in a general election. And what do you like about Nigel Farage and what makes you think that he's got what it takes to change Britain? Is this your wife just making a face? You know, we've got to stop the votes coming over. I've nothing against, you know, foreign people coming over legally.

14:49Yeah. But we've got to make a stand. We can't sustain it. We just... True stuff. We're lad on our back and they're tickling our bellies. You know what I mean? Many voters feel that illegal immigrants are getting an easy ride and that Labour isn't doing enough to stop them arriving or deporting them once they get here. Immigration, rather, you've got people coming over and they're working. Fair enough. You've got people coming over and they're free-loading. They're coming over without passports. That's a massive cost for the company. And who's paying for it all? All these young families who try to get out, they can't get out because they're paying for them.

15:23It's not right, is it? But most of the immigration to the UK is not people coming on small boats. Most of it is people coming over legally with visas. Students. And then somewhere they get on their benefit system, don't they? We notice it more because we have a very low immigration number in this area. I think it's 97 % white, British here. Yeah, but every day you see more and more. And like I said, the less places for them to go, they're being dumped in these areas either because there's no-one else for them to go. Me? I've always been a labour man. Are you going to find him? No, he's not. Fountain Reef for him.

16:06I don't like Nigel Farage, but something's got to be done. I actually feel Nigel Farage is racist, but something needs to be done about immigration. Farage, of course, would vehemently deny being a racist. But for make-it-feel constituents with an immigrant background, the focus on immigration is scary. This is 18-year-old Amy, a first-time voter. I'm the daughter of an immigrant mother. I was not born in this country, but I moved here when I was young. So I... Where were you born? I was born in Estonia. My mother's from Estonia. I've got very strong cultural roots to not England. What Reform and what Rob Kenyon wants to do and what Farage wants to do is they want to say, you can go back to the country that is dehumanising you and taking away all your rights.

17:06Josh, Nigel Farage and Reform, an attempt to learn from their defeat in the Gordon and Denton by-election, have this time round decided to stand Robert Kenyon, a local plumber who also stood for them in 2024. And they've been leaning heavily on his background, both as a tradesman and a local.

17:35Kenyon has come in for a lot of heat because of things that he'd previously posted online. For those who've missed it, can you remind us, what did he say then and is he standing by those remarks? I mean, well, Robert Kenyon managed to offend pretty much everybody of his last decade on social media. There were examples of homophobic comments, transphobic, sexist comments. There were pretty degrading comments about Carol Vorderman, the former television presenter, and some about abortion, saying women only get abortion so they can, quote, shag anyone they want. he has sort of apologised in a very half-hearted way saying you know accepting that some of his comments were crass and that he wouldn't post them today you know so I think something that's said you know 15 years ago dragged up from an old rugby forum you know it's completely taken out of context and like I say I've made mistakes I've said things years ago that I wouldn't say now and I definitely don't believe that on that point you know it's yeah so I hope that addresses that issue and it's like, so I've got nothing but respect for women.

18:44But then both he and Reform have tried to use it to his advantage, saying it's just proof that he's not a polished professional politician and he can speak to ordinary working people. They're the sort of comments that you won't necessarily get if you're an Oxford-educated career politician living in a nice postcode in London. But I tell you what, they're the kind of comments you'll hear in every pub in the country every evening and we should be unapologetic. It's a big throw of the dice. I mean, I think there will be lessons for this, for reform. Just like there were lessons for reform after the Gorton and Denton by-election, candidates still matter.

19:25But do they get the best candidates for these particular seats from what we've seen in terms of some of the constituency polls that have been out there, but also the question time hustings where these comments were brought up repeatedly? is that Robert Kenyon and Reform are having a pretty hard time with women. Yeah, we definitely heard that when we were in Makerfield and people were saying, kind of insulted at the suggestion that it's just part of being a working class lad. Everyone's saying, oh, you know, he's a local guy, Robert Kenyon, and some of the stuff he's come out with, he's not got a clue what he's talking about.

20:00He's admitted he's sexist straight away. Yeah, he's a sexist and he's just, oh, he's not got a clue what he's talking about, has he? I get that people are coming with the attitude, oh, he's a local lad, you know, he represents us kind of thing. He doesn't represent me. I'm not sexist. I don't hold them views. I don't walk around saying, oh, women shouldn't be able to drive. I don't want to talk about sniffing Carol Vorderman. You don't have to be the lowest common denominator to be one of the people. I don't understand how any woman can vote for him. I don't feel like he's, honestly, I don't feel like he's intelligent enough for the job.

20:33As harsh as that sounds. We head to Bryn, an area north of Ashton where Kenyon was elected local reform councillor last month We pop into the Bryn Social Club which until last year was branded the Bryn Labour Club and we get chatting to Lisa, the manager Rob Kenyon doesn't know his arse from his elbow so, you know You're not impressed with him then? Well no, obviously It's probably the definition of a U-Bender because he's full of shit so that's my opinion on it Good plumbing joke Well, you've got to get it in, haven't you? You've got to get it in, so that's who you are. What do you think about what he said about women?

21:10Are you bothered about that? Who? Rob Kenyon. Well, I think he's an arsehole, isn't he? He's the arsehole of the country at the minute, after King of Starmer, so why would anybody vote for that? Who do you think is going to win? I want Reestone to win. I'm a member of Reestone, so I want them to win.

21:41Josh, this by-election is being fought online as well, if not more than actually on the doorstep. And if we look at which of the candidates is arguably winning the online race, the race for eyeballs, then it's arguably not Andy Burnham and it's not Nigel Farage. It's Rupert Lowe, the former Reform MP who has since established a new party, which is even further to the right than reform and it's called Restore Britain where she made an episode all about them a couple of weeks ago. Now this is a party which has talked about deporting millions of people, about bringing back the death penalty. This is a party with a leader who's talked about the UK importing murderous third world savages in response to the Belfast attack last week and this was supposed to be a two-horse race but Restore through their online presence have managed to sneak into third place haven't they so it's still a very very fringe outfit you know it doesn't have anywhere near the scale of operation as reform or the number of canvases or campaigners or councillors um so it relies heavily on social media um to reach its voters i had a quick look at the um the ads on facebook and instagram in this by-election campaign and labor um pretty far outstrips other parties by the number of ads it's purchased i put forward my contract for makerfield which is what i will put forward if i am your mp to deal with the flooding infrastructure so no but interestingly restore have bought nearly double the amount of advertisements on facebook and instagram than reform but in makerfield they really seem to have fought themselves into a place where they could affect the outcome restore's candidate is rebecca shepherd she's a local businesswoman and and she's um been campaigning on restore's national pledge to overhaul immigration laws, but also local issues around antisocial behaviour on high streets, violence against women and girls, and also she's focused on Turkish barbers and vape shops under this lens of there must be some criminality there.

23:40Nigel Farage has banged this drum as well, but Restore seems to be going further with it. And Camus, what do you like about them? What do you think makes them different from reform? Because they follow through with what they say. And they're MP, the candidate for MP here. Rebecca Shepard, I've met her and she is fantastic. You ask her a question, she answers you with an answer. She knows all the policies, she knows what she's talking about. That's just my opinion on it. No, I mean I guess they've kind of, you say they follow through but they're unproven at the moment aren't they? They're really new.

24:11But like with Rupert Law, he said he was going to obviously do the Rape Gang Inquirer, he followed through with it. That's what people have wanted to know for several years. And nobody helped for it. I just said he'd do it twice, never did it. He put it to give us what we wanted. So for me, he's the guy. You know, the polls seem to have them in third. They're hovering around 10 percentage points of the vote, which is absolutely astonishing, really, considering they didn't exist, you know, six months ago. Yeah, and that's bigger than the projected tiny lead that Andy Burnham has in the polls, right?

24:41It's quite remarkable. It's worrying for a lot of people who care about, you know, the future of not just this country. but it's very worrying for Nigel Farage. His old colleague turned enemy, Rupert Lowe, could blow this by-election for reform. What's Rupert Lowe got that it's appealing to some people over you? Thank you very much. Elon Musk, thank you. I mean, most people here who say restore, and by the way, it's not a very big percentage, most people here would not recognise a photograph of him. Right? This is stuff that pops up on their phones. that has been the problem with it i do not believe for a moment it will last and most people i think expect nigel farage to move further to the right to head off this rise of restore britain some suggested that nigel farage's response to the henry novak killer sentencing the this call for pure cold rage was an attempt to see off anything that might be said by restore britain and really get on the front foot with it that seems to have backfired polls suggest that most people disapproved of his stance on that.