Andy Burnham has vowed to deliver a “new script” in British politics as he pitched his Makerfield by-election campaign as a chance to “change Labour”.
The Greater Manchester mayor officially kicked off his campaign for the crucial contest on Friday, setting out his vision for parliament – and potentially No 10 – in front of a crowd of Labour activists and politicians.
Speaking at a community and sports club in the constituency, Mr Burnham insisted his bid to return to Parliament would not be “business as usual”, and that it would instead force Westminster to “focus on the places it usually looks past”.
“This is not more of the same,” he said. “This is a change by-election politics in this country. British politics is tired. It needs a new script, and over the next four weeks, the people of Makerfield are going to write that script, and it’s great that they’re going to get that chance.”
He added: “What I have inside is a burning sense of injustice that the proud communities of this place face a Westminster system that puts them at the bottom of the list when they should be at the top of the list.”
Mr Burnham – who is a favourite to beat Sir Keir Starmer in a challenge for leadership – criticised his party’s recent direction, and said: “A vote for me in this by-election is a vote to change Labour.
“I know my own party needs to change. We need to be better than we have been.”
He also promised the voters of Makerfield that they would get “the party back they used to know” which is “solidly on the side of working class people and working class communities”, following Reform UK’s notable success in the area in the local elections earlier this month.
The Manchester mayor was keen to pitch himself as a local man in his speech, as he reminisced getting his first coach to an Everton away game without his dad in 1984.
He went on: “I love it so much that I brought my own family up here. I live here. I have lived here for 25 years. My home is two miles over there. I could walk to this campaign centre from where I live. My three kids went to a school just down there in Ashton.”
He called for change to the education and housing systems, saying the country needed the biggest programme of council house building since the Second World War, and also said train renationalisation should be used to reduce train fares.
While the address was the official launch of his campaign to be Makerfield’s MP, it could also serve as his bid to lead the Labour Party upon his return to Westminster.
Josh Simons, the Labour MP who stood down to make way for Mr Burnham, won in 2024 by just 5,399 votes while Reform comfortably won every ward in the constituency at this month’s local elections.
Pollsters have signalled that having Mr Burnham running will significantly boost Labour’s chances of retaining the seat, but it could still prove a tough contest against Nigel Farage’s Reform UK.
Under Sir Keir, Labour suffered a devastating series of setbacks in elections in England, Wales and Scotland earlier in May, triggering a wave of speculation around his position.
Allies of Mr Burnham have suggested he may not launch a bid for the party leadership immediately if he is successful in his attempt to return to Parliament in the June 18 contest.
Regardless of the potential leadership challenge, Sir Keir has said he will be out campaigning for Mr Burnham to help boost his chances of winning the contest.
Asked whether he would be out campaigning in Makerfield, the prime minister told reporters on a visit to Essex on Thursday: “Yes, and I’ve said to the whole Labour movement that I want everybody to be involved in the campaign, whatever other discussions are going on, it’s really important – that’s a straight fight between Labour and Reform.”
Reform’s candidate is Robert Kenyon, a local plumber who said he is “ready to take on the King of the North”.
When Mr Kenyon served as the Reform candidate for the 2024 general election, Searchlight magazine reported that he was Facebook ‘friends’ with Gary Raikes, the neo-fascist founder of the New British Union. The Independent understands that the page Mr Kenyon was friends with was a political page, rather than a personal one.
Meanwhile, the Green Party announced that its candidate, Chris Kennedy, had withdrawn from the race just hours after he had been selected. The party said Mr Kennedy had withdrawn for “personal and family reasons”, but it later emerged that he had shared posts on social media claiming an attack on Jewish ambulances in north London had been a “false flag” operation.
