Andy Burnham’s victory in the Makerfield by-election was nothing short of dazzling. The Greater Manchester Mayor took a majority of votes cast and beat his nearest rival, the Reform UK candidate, by nearly 9.000 votes. Turnout at 59% was exceptionally high for a by-election, emphasising that this was no ordinary contest.

The scale of Burnham’s victory will underline for many Labour MPs not only that Burnham is a winner – but he may be the only chance that many of them will have of retaining their seats at the next General Election. This win will see more and more of his colleagues coming across to his cause, leaving Keir Starmer increasingly isolated. Already Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander is reported to have told the Prime Minister to set a timetable for leaving office.

It’s a great opportunity and as Burnham’s victory speech underlined, it won’t come again. He said: “There will be no second chance, but it is a chance now, from this result tonight, to build a new politics based on unity and hope, turning away from the path that takes us to a divided, dark politics of the kind we see in the United States. We must now take this path and put this country back on the right path, and bring people back together and get things working properly again.”

Below Bryn Griffiths outlines where we go from here. Other reactions follow.

Labour has won big, Andy Burnham’s progressive vote beating all the right-wing candidates put together. It gives us all hope that the hapless Starmer will be promptly removed and replaced by someone who can actually win a difficult election.

Don’t underestimate the sheer enormity of the Makerfield achievement because back in May, in the Council elections, Reform won every ward in the constituency!

As well as Andy, we must also give a little bit of credit to the Greens due to their low-key campaign, allowing a united effort to beat Reform. It’s a precedent I hope both parties – that is, including Labour – can follow whenever difficult circumstances demand it.

Today we can celebrate, but as good as our victory is, it is not good enough. It can only be the start of a struggle to rebuild the left, to both support and place pressure on Andy Burnham from below and defeat Nigel Farage. We cannot rest between now and 2029 until we have beaten Nigel Farage and the extreme right in all its manifestations across the whole country.

Please don’t even think about trusting Andy Burnham – or for that matter, any individual MP. Instead, see this Makerfield victory as an opportunity to rebuild a broad pluralist left to support, and most importantly, put a lot of pressure on Andy.

Our rebuilt left must support picket lines, community organisation, stand with those in the front line such as the LGBTQ+ community including our trans siblings, insist on the re-nationalisation of our utilities, and never ever move an inch on Gaza.

A great start to rebuilding such a left will be backing Centre Left Grass Roots Alliance and Mainstream candidates in Labour’s internal elections. Both sets of candidates are committed to reintroducing democracy into the Labour Party. The election of candidates on these slates will allow us on the left to breathe again.

Momentum is backing four brilliant socialist candidates: Jessica Barnard, Gemma Bolton, Yasmine Darr, and Minesh Parekh for the CLP section of Labour’s NEC.

One opportunity Andy’s magnificent victory will give us is the chance to massively prioritise proportional representation (PR). Supporting PR is the right thing to do, will help persuade some of those abandoning Labour to the left to lend us their votes in 2029, and when introduced, it will help us lock the extreme right out of Government.

Get briefed on PR by Sandy Martin, the Labour Campaign for Electoral Reform Chair on the Labour Left Podcast here. Have a listen, then demand your Labour MP backs Alex Sobel MP’s campaign for a Commission on electoral reform.

There are tough times ahead, but for today, we can rejoice.

Bryn Griffiths is an activist in Colchester Labour Party and North Essex World Transformed. He is the Vice-Chair of Momentum and sits on the Campaign for Labour Party Democracy’s Executive. Hehosts Labour Hub’s spin off – the Labour Left Podcast – all episodes available here.

Other reactions

Momentum welcomed Andy Burnham’s win in a statement, pointing out that it “shows how we can win when all corners of Labour come together to defeat the right. This could not have been achieved without thousands of activists coming out in Makerfield inspired by the promise of a more hopeful, imaginative and inclusive politics.”

Former Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell MP agreed, tweeting: “Makerfield was a tremendous victory because it stopped Reform in its tracks. The progressive Left united to defeat the divisive politics of the Right. The next step is to re-establish the broad church of the Labour Party.”

Ian Byrne MP said the “remarkable result is a world away from where Labour currently stands in the national polls. It proves that Nigel Farage and the politics of division can be defeated at the next General Election. But that will only happen if Labour changes course and reconnects with the communities it was founded to represent.”

Former Shadow Home Secretary Diane Abbott MP, who has been suspended by the Party leadership for nearly a year, congratulated Burnham on his result – “and a complete rout of the far right!” She added: “It is completely true we need sweeping change, not just in leadership but also in policies that deliver for ordinary people.”

Former Shadow Minister for the Cabinet Office Jon Trickett MP agreed, saying: “Our party needs new leadership and a transformative programme that delivers for all of our people.”

“A leadership contest is now highly likely,” he wrote in a Tribune article. “Properly conducted, it could become a genuine moment of democratic renewal for the party. Every major strand of Labour opinion deserves a voice. The conversation Labour needs cannot happen while the shadow of the control-freakery, bureaucratic centralism and factionalism that defined the Starmer–McSweeney era continues to hang over it.”

In a detailed and thoughtful analysis, Labour’s former Strategic Campaigns Adviser Simon Fletcher lamented Keir Starmer’s conservative policy choices over the least two years which have reduced Labour’s social base. “Ideas championed by the Left, from public ownership to wealth taxes and beyond, are in step with public opinion and indeed reflect the concerns of sections of the population that have been willing to stop voting Labour,” he suggested.

But he also warned: “An incoming leadership that is not also honest about went so badly wrong on Gaza and is unwilling to correct it would not be able to reassemble Labour’s electoral coalition on a stable footing.”

Image: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Andy_Burnham_on_13_August_2024_%28cropped_2%29.jpg Source: https://www.flickr.com/photos/26320652@N02/53921141434/ Author: Scottish Government, licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license.