Makerfield by-election date set as Andy Burnham eyes return to Westminster and Labour leadership challenge
The Makerfield by-election, in which Andy Burnham will be the Labor candidate, will take place next month.
Wigan Council confirmed in an announcement on Wednesday that the by-election will be held on Thursday, June 18.
The Mayor of Greater Manchester, seen as a rival to embattled Prime Minister Keir Starmer, will need to win the seat of Makerfield near Manchester before mounting any formal leadership challenge.
The disastrous local election results, calls from Labor MPs for him to go and a spate of resignations from lower levels of government last week have thrown Sir Keir’s political future into doubt.
While the Conservatives, Liberal Democrats and Green Party are mulling over their own candidates, Reform UK’s candidate in the Makerfield by-election, Robert Kenyon, is the other candidate nominated in the key by-election.
The by-election date announcement came as Wes Streeting warned that the Labor Government had lost the fight against nationalism and risked “handing over the keys to Number 10 to Reform” unless it changed course.
He made his resignation speech in the House of Commons on Wednesday after quitting his role as health minister last week and calling on the Prime Minister to resign.
Mr Streeting told MPs: “I left the government because we are in the fight of our lives against nationalism and it is a fight we are now losing.
“Unless we change course we risk handing the keys to Number 10 to Reform and I don’t want that to disturb our conscience.
“For the first time in our history nationalists are in power in every corner of the UK.
“Scottish and Welsh nationalism represents an existential threat to the future integrity of the United Kingdom.
“And Reformation UK poses a threat to the values and ideals that have made this country great.”
He also told MPs that he did not believe Labor had “time to waste on the government treading water” and said it needed to “fight” for young people who “for the first time in our modern history face worse prospects than before”.
Streeting said the UK had failed to protect young people from the “AI employment apocalypse” and warned that “if mainstream democratic policies fail to answer these questions, others will exploit the gap”.
The former health secretary touched on the challenges Mr Burnham faced in the Makerfield competition.
He framed the war as a struggle between “progressives against reactionaries, patriots against nationalists, hope against hatred.”
“This is Andy Burnham’s fight at Makerfield and Labor’s fight for the soul of our country.”
Mr Streeting said his resignation was an “emotional wrench”, but concluded his speech by saying “I leave the Government with no regrets and with rebellious hope”, a reference to the late bowel cancer campaigner Dame Deborah James.
“The Labor Party was elected to deliver real change. We can still do that.”
Mr Streeting has made clear that he intends to participate in any leadership contests.
Disastrous local election results, calls from Labor MPs for him to go and a spate of resignations from lower levels of government last week have thrown Sir Keir’s political future into doubt.
But the prime minister insisted he would not “walk away” from Downing Street.
No 10 refused to say whether Sir Keir, who said he backed Mr Burnham “100 per cent” in the by-election, would personally be knocking on doors in the Greater Manchester constituency.
Asked whether the Prime Minister’s support for the mayor meant he supported his policy positions, Sir Keir’s political spokesman said: “Andy Burnham can speak as himself as a candidate in this by-election, obviously the Prime Minister speaks for the government.”
If Mr Burnham were leader of the Labor Party, the party could reverse its poll woes and beat Nigel Farage’s Reform UK in the general election, according to a More in Common poll.
