Labour’s Greater Manchester mayor hopes a win over Reform UK will help force the prime minister to step aside
Good evening, and welcome to the Guardian’s Makerfield byelection live blog. The polls have just closed and we may have to wait until around dawn (quite early in the summer, of course) until we get a result. But, as the votes are counted, it should become clear well before then who is going to win. Andy Burnham, the Labour former cabinet minister, current mayor of Greater Manchester, and potential future prime minister, is widely expected to be the new MP, but at this point no one knows for sure.
Here is our latest story about what has been happening today, and what may unfold in the hours to come.
At the time of going to print, Op Makerfield is not a totally done deal. Two of Burnham’s top team parrot the same line: ‘It’s closer than you think.’ But those advising the Manchester mayor think the scale of any win will determine the speed of events. ‘If he wins by low single digits, Keir Starmer digs in and says: “You can’t come for me until after the Manchester mayoral election on 30 July,” and it’s bloody trench warfare,’ one says. ‘If it’s a comfortable, single-digits win, the soft left will try to take power through a conversation, but they will probably discover that power has to be taken by force. If Andy gets more than Reform plus Restore combined, start the clock. There will be an avalanche.’
Continue reading…
Source link : https://www.theguardian.com/politics/live/2026/jun/18/makerfield-byelection-keir-starmer-andy-burnham-robert-kenyon-labour-leadership-reform-aberdeen-arbroath-uk-politics-latest-news-updates
Author : Andrew Sparrow
Publish date : 2026-06-18 21:02:00
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