A special election in the UK could hasten the rise of Andy Burnham and the end for Keir Starmer

Keir Starmer is not on the ballot, but the British prime minister’s future is at stake in Thursday’s special election.

Voters in the Makerfield region of north-west England are electing a new MP and the leading candidate is the ruling Labor Party’s Andy Burnham, the current mayor of Greater Manchester and the bookies’ favorite to be the next prime minister.

If Burnham defeats a candidate from the anti-immigration Reform UK party and wins the seat from Labor, she is almost certain to challenge the embattled Starmer for the leadership of the party and the country.

Burnham promised that “if people trust me I will change politics”; That’s a big promise for a politician who, if he wins, will be just one of 650 MPs in the House of Commons.

But the huge number of journalists flocking to Makerfield from around the world during the campaign is evidence that this is no ordinary by-election, the results of which will be announced early on Friday.

Starmer has been struggling since landslide win

About 75,000 people are eligible to vote in Makerfield, a constituency covering several towns and villages on the edge of Greater Manchester, 200 miles (320 kilometers) northwest of London.

They hold the fate of Starmer, whose popularity has waned since he led the centre-left Labor Party to a landslide election victory in July 2024, in their hands.

Starmer’s government has struggled to deliver promised economic growth, repair outdated public services and ease living costs, and has been hampered by repeated missteps, including the decision to appoint Jeffrey Epstein’s scandal-tainted friend Peter Mandelson as the United Kingdom’s ambassador to the United States.

A poor performance in May’s local elections led many Labor MPs to call for Starmer’s resignation. He has refused to back down but senior colleagues are trying to force a change. Wes Streeting resigned as health secretary in May, saying “there is a gap where we need vision.”

Then Josh Simons, the Labor MP for Makerfield, resigned to trigger a special election and give Burnham the chance to return to Parliament.

Britain’s parliamentary system allows parties in power to change leaders mid-term; The winner becomes prime minister without the need for a national election. Under Labor Party rules, an MP can challenge the leader if the party has the support of a fifth (81) of Commons MPs.

Streeting said on Tuesday that he hoped Starmer would agree to resign, but if he did not “there will have to be a contest and I will be prepared to do that”.

Burnham victory will increase pressure on Starmer to resign

Streeting is a confident communicator who has a support base among his parliamentary colleagues, but he is thought to be Burnham’s more likely successor.

The 56-year-old politician, nicknamed the “King of the North”, has governed Manchester since 2017 and is overseeing the rapid regeneration of the city where the Industrial Revolution took place. Burnham promises to replicate his signature brand of “Manchesterism” on a national scale.

While campaigning last week, Burnham said: “The way the country is being run is not right” and claimed “London-centric policies” were failing other parts of the UK

Starmer, meanwhile, tried to stay calm and move on, saying he had no intention of leaving his post at the G7 summit in France this week.

“If there is a challenge, I will fight,” he said. “We won an important general election result with a mission to create change in 2024. I will not give up on that.”

“I want her to have a big role in the government,” Starmer told Sky News on Wednesday, suggesting he could offer Burnham a cabinet post. Burnham’s allies stated that she was not interested.

Rob Ford, professor of political science at the University of Manchester, said that if Burnham wins convincingly, “the pressure on Starmer will be very difficult to resist”.

“Starmer can say whatever he wants to go on,” Ford said. “But if he turns to the whole cabinet and says, ‘We will not serve under you and we think you should go,’ then he will either go with dignity or he will go with dishonor, but in the end he will have to go very quickly.”

Reform challenges UK Labor

Burnham’s victory is not assured. The Makerfield ward has been electing Labor MPs for more than a century, but Reform UK has rapidly gained ground in post-industrial northern England and won a landslide victory in last month’s local elections.

Reform candidate Rob Kenyon, a local plumber, hopes to capitalize on concerns about immigration frequently voiced by voters despite the relatively small number of immigrants in Makerfield. But Reform faces a challenge to its right from Restore, an even more strident, anti-immigration and ethno-nationalist party.

A Burnham victory would be bad news for Starmer. But Ford said a Reform victory at Makerfield would mean “Gotterdammerung, doom, disaster, chaos” for Labor.

“Andy Burnham is miles more popular than any other current (leadership) candidate. He’s miles better known, he’s miles better loved,” he said.

“If Reformation eliminates it, you also have a situation where the threat of Reformation looks much more serious and the person best able to combat the threat of Reformation has failed.”