The Labour Party’s Andy Burnham has won the critical Makerfield by-election in the United Kingdom after promising to launch an intraparty challenge to replace sitting Prime Minister Keir Keir Starmer as both party leader and PM.
Burnham, who has served as the Mayor of Greater Manchester since 2017 and previously represented part of the city in the House of Commons, won over 55% of the vote, besting Reform candidate Robert Kenyon by more than 20 points.
Once he’s sworn in next week, Burnham will be free to challenge Starmer, though he “must first be nominated by at least 20% of the parliamentary party (currently 81 MPs), as well as by at least 5% of all local branches or at least three party-affiliated groups, of which a minimum of two must be unions,” The Guardian explains.
Since taking office in 2024, Starmer has faced stiff opposition from the Tories, Greens, and Reform as well as declining poll numbers. Starmer’s popularity as prime minister sits as low as any British leader in modern history. (RELATED: British Prime Minister Keir Starmer Appears More Concerned By Musk Tweets Than Nowak Murder)
He barely held onto power earlier this year after the late January release of the Epstein Files, which revealed close ties between Peter Mandelson, Starmer’s hand-picked ambassador to the United States, and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. Starmer has claimed that Mandelson misled him about the nature of the relationship.
Following Mandelson’s resignation and subsequent arrest for allegedly leaking sensitive information to Epstein during his stint as Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s business secretary, Labour suffered a catastrophic defeat in local council elections as Nigel Farage’s Reform Party surged in popularity.
The results led to the resignation of multiple cabinet members, including Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Digital ID Josh Simons, whose departure triggered the Makerfield by-election.
Anger toward Starmer has continued to mount in recent days with the release of “The Rape Gang Inquiry Report” by British Member of Parliament Rupert Lowe, who launched the Restore Britain party in February. (RELATED: ‘The State Enabled Them’: British MP Rupert Lowe Releases Horrifying Report On Migrant Rape Gangs)
The report alleged the “systematic targeting” of at least 250,000 “vulnerable girls, overwhelmingly White British, by predominantly Muslim Pakistani gangs across towns and cities throughout the United Kingdom,” though some critics have raised concerns about the report’s methods and conclusions.