Andy Burnham has won the Makerfield byelection for Labour, gaining 55% of the vote on an exceptionally high turnout of 58.7%. He won 9,000 more votes than Reform UK’s Robert Kenyon, in what turned out to be an unusual byelection swing to the party of government.
The scale of a result like this sends a message of its own to Reform UK, to Labour, and to the incumbent prime minister, Keir Starmer. But what can we make of Burnham’s message in his victory speech?
