With Josh Simons’ resignation on Thursday, the starting gun on the 2026 Labour leadership election was (sort of) finally fired.
There is now a theoretical, if muddy, path for Andy Burnham to re-enter parliament and become the next Prime Minister. The Greater Manchester Mayor, a vocal critic of Keir Starmer, has announced he plans to apply to stand in the by-election. Reform UK, buoyed by a second set of astonishing local election results, including across most of Greater Manchester, have responded in kind to say they plan to throw everything they can at the seat. The question being raised internally, and that will be no doubt raised externally too, is whether we should allow them a straight head-to-head or whether we should put up a candidate.
I think the answer for this contest, as it is in all contests, is that we should give people a chance to vote Liberal Democrat, and I will try and explain why.
The first and most pressing point is that we do not own the voters and cannot tell them what to do on either a moral or a practical level. Just because someone voted Lib Dem in a previous general or local council election does not mean they are sitting waiting for instruction from us on how to vote in future. Voters are free to make up their own minds and vote how they wish. Us standing down will not guarantee that any votes go the way that we intend them to. Indeed, any Lib Dem votes in Greater Manchester would be tacit anti-Burnham votes anyway, and so there is an argument that in the absence of a Lib Dem candidate they would transfer to the next anti-Burnham candidate, in this case Reform.
But let’s say we could. Let’s say we could direct those voters to vote Labour and us standing down would lower the ceiling for them. Should we do it then? The answer is still no. Andy Burnham still has to win over a plurality of the rest of the voters in Makerfield. He is standing to be the Labour candidate, on a platform that is explicitly opposed to the current Labour prime minister. What is that campaign going to look like? Are Labour organisers and canvassers going to trawl around asking people to vote Labour to give Labour a bloody nose? Will he be allowed to criticise the government? The logistics of it seem totally incoherent. Labour HQ is not going to allow Andy Burnham to run on an anti-Starmer platform, so Burnham will be relying on voters reading between the lines, not taking the Labour campaign at its word, and hoping that he will topple the Prime Minister. This is a campaign relying on a wink and a prayer and Andy Burnham’s supposed personal popularity. It is not a serious, credible proposal that we should step aside for.
Okay, so we can’t instruct our voters and we’re not fully sure how Burnham would win the election anyway, but shouldn’t we be supporting his candidacy since he’s one of the good ones? Andy Burnham has undergone a tremendous political rehabilitation in the nine years since he left Parliament and reinvented himself as the left wing mayor of the UK’s most left wing city. But before that, he was an MP for 16 years. In those years, he was indistinguishable from the average New Labour MP on the backbenches; he voted for the Iraq War and voted repeatedly against an inquiry into it. In government, he was the only Health Secretary in British history to privatise an NHS hospital. In opposition, he left parliament to take up a devolved post when his party was in the doldrums (his old seat of Leigh was won by the Tories in the 2019 landslide) and now Labour are back in government he seems itching to get a seat back at the top table. Some may see Andy Burnham as Britain’s last great hope for progressive politics. Others may see his record of 25 years in office and conclude this is not something worth sticking our neck out to protect.
If that doesn’t persuade you, imagine Nigel Farage decrying an establishment stitch up to allow a former Brown-era cabinet minister to waltz back into parliament and immediately begin lobbying for the top job. If we are seen to throw them a life raft at this by-election, we will undermine our efforts to oppose them both locally and nationally.
To the Lib Dem candidate in Makerfield: I don’t know who you are, but I know our party needs you.
* Ciaran Morrissey is a Lib Dem activist in Sunderland
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36 Comments
We also have to throw the kitchen sink AND MORE into this election. We have done badly in the North AND have a low media appearance. If we do not blow our own trumpet LOUDLY who will notice we even exist? As as has been mentioned re door knocking Gaza and living standards etc should be the topics discussed. We know that Reform is not good for the party but we have to wake up to the Greens are stealing our ‘genteel’ thunder. and are equally a threat to us. With the extremes on the up we have to fight harder to be noticed
Labour can’t put out leaflets saying “Vote Reform, Get Starmer”, but we can. Put out leaflets with the usual community champion fluff on the back, and that in big letters on the front.
It’s not on us to make things easy for other parties, and voters should be given an opportunity to vote for us if they wish. But we really need to take the threat of a Reform Government far more seriously than we do. Andy Burnham as Prime Minister offers a better chance of preventing that than Starmer or any of the other likely alternative Labour leaders at this moment in time. We should seriously hope he wins this by-election.
I think Norman Rockwell hits the nail on the head.
Granted, earlier in his career Burnham was a classic Blairite of the sort that inspired the grim wisecrack “What’s the difference between a Labour MP and a supermarket trolley? A supermarket trolley has a mind of its own”. But people can change. Early in his career, Harold Wilson, who we all regarded as a middle-of-the-road man, was enough of a die-hard Bevanite to resign over prescription charges.
Burnham has done some good stuff in Manchester; and he is probably the only senior politician who can look the Hillsborough families in the eye.
40 odd years ago I lived in Ashton in Makerfield and for my pains stood in the locals for Wigan Council in what is now the North West ward. Was time of Miners strike and my Labour opponent was local miners union branch official. A 40% of the work force were going in each day at the two local mines . Interesting times. For the record I received 40%.
Then we had a Council group almost in double figures and in the general election polled 23%.
On that evidence we should stand.
However we have nothing there these days. This is a very very important on off election and we need Reform and Greens to do badly.
Much is at stake nationally, this is a one off and important that Burnham wins for a variety of reasons. Normally I say we should always throw the kitchen sink but on this one occasion on balance feel we should not field a candidate
and save our money. The ex Green Leader is also recommending they stand down.
I am a Labour Party member and I come in peace.
I fully understand the view that voters should be given the choice and opportunity to vote LD. At any other time I would be fully behind your view that fighting the by-election is the right and democratic thing to do.
However, the country is staring down the barrel of a gun. Farage is one of the most divisive characters in British politics and currently on a roll. Victory for reform would further fuel the momentum that Reform have at the moment.
I will be volunteering to help support Labour in Makerfield. This is our country’s opportunity to inflict a solid blow on the advance of Reform and the dark prospect of Farage taking our country to a place none of us in either Labour or the Liberal Democrats want to see.
I urge the Liberal Democrats (and the Greens) to set aside short term party interest to unite with us and defeat Farage in this high profile election.
Labour with Burnham might just flip Reform as largest party to Labour as largest party in 2029. I don’t need to tell you what opportunities that might present to the Liberal Democrats.
Unite to beat the dark politics of Reform.
There is a huge flaw in those who support us not fielding a candidate. There is absolutely no certainty that those denied the opportunity to vote for our party will vote at all, or if they do that they will back Labour.
And what would a no show in Makerfield do to our claim to be a national party, especially if, as promised, the Greens intend to fight this seat hard?
Political parties cannot make decisions for voters. I am confident that the voters of Makerfield are fully capable of deciding whether to support Burnham or reform. But there are some people, perhaps only a few in Makerfield, who actually want to vote LibDem. The choice should be theirs, not our party’s.
Let’s field a candidate and run as strong as campaign as we can. Our party’s future depends on us starting to make progress in hopeless seats. If nothing else, we should be able to find the people who will run the Makerfield LibDems in the future and maybe one or two wards we could start fighting seriously in Wigan, where we currently have no councillors.
Agree with Mick Taylor.
Bottom line, either the Liberal Democrat Party is a serious UK political party with serious well thought out policies relevant to the needs of all parts of the U.K. – or it isn’t. It’s make your mind up time in more senses than one, Sir Edward. Don’t expect those of us who have been Liberals since the Grimond days (in my case since 1961) waiting for something to turn up to hang around for ever.
“And what would a no show in Makerfield do to our claim to be a national party..”
Exactly.
Voters in this by-election should be able to vote for a LibDem candidate.
@Ciaran raises legitimate concerns, and I don’t dismiss the Burnham record question, it needs an honest answer, not a brush-off. But the campaign incoherence argument cuts both ways: if Burnham can’t say what he stands for on the doorstep, that’s precisely the reason to attach explicit public conditions before the writ moves rather than simply standing aside or standing a candidate. Make him say so on record. I’m setting out that case in more detail in a piece being published here tomorrow morning.
Andy Burnham is walking into a trap. How so?
~ Josh Simons who has “generously” given up his seat for Burham, runs the think-tank Labour Together which is a vehicle to promote Starmer. So, why would Josh Simons open that seat for Burnham?
~ Keir Starmer want to see the end of Burnham (King of the North) threat for good.
~ Wes Streeting has also been very welcoming to Andy Burnham back into the Westminster Labour fold. Why would Wes Streeting be so keen for Burnham to enter the Wakefield by-election, when Burnham is direct competition to Wes’s ambitions?
Answer : All three of them are willing to turn Wakefield into a political *land-mine*, and sacrifice it to Reform, in order to erase the King of the North from politics.
Reform have been in decline since last Autumn though they may get a bounce from The Locals. If they win this By-election they will get an enormous boost combined with absolutely maximum publicity. In the Wards covering this Constituency they got roughly half the Vote – every “wasted” Vote matters. Do we want to be the ones who save Reform ?
I am not saying that we shouldn’t campaign – we should Campaign as Libdems fighting Reform & call on Greens etc to do the same.
As Caroline Lucas put it, this a time to put Country before Party.
* Makerfield *
@ Tom Bailey,
” So, why would Josh Simons open that seat for Burnham?”
Good question. I’ve been wondering about this myself. Your explanation does sound plausible but this supposes that Streeting will win a leadership election which will be decided by Labour Party members. I’d say this is unlikely even if Burnham isn’t in the running.
It could well be that the Labour Together group doesn’t see a Burnham win as being quite so bad as a win for Angela Rayner. They probably think they can keep him essentially on the same trajectory as now,
@ Peter Martin
Thanks for engaging. Couple of things, Wes Streeting is very young, and his ambitions might allow him a couple of “stepping stones”. He has a worryingly small majority of about 526. If Starmer is up-for-it, by sacking Reeves, Wes might be happy with the Chancellor position, whilst “upgrading himself, to a 2029 election. All wes has to do as Chancellor is NOT spook the markets. I have a lot of time for Angela Rayner and her back story, but lets nor beat around the bush, she is not smart enough to deal with Britain’s problems, and I think she is smart enough to realise her limitations. Josh Simons has been offered *something* to give up his seat, which will transpire, all in good time.
I do still believe its a trap for Burnham, and I don’t know how he can extracate himself without looking ‘frit’.
Sometimes I wonder if you need to be a devious piece of ****, to actually understand how low these politicians are able to function? Be clear, they [politicians], are not like normal folk; their level of deceptive lies and backstabbing would make Machiavelli blush.
Thanks for your input Martin.
I think the terms burnham has used in interviews today are interesting. He’s mounted an insurrectionist apprkach talking about ‘saving’ the labour party, suggested british pokitics lost its way under thatcher and let down constituencies like makerfield by promoting deindustrialisation and denationalising transport and utilities. It seems so far touted at an older Reform leaning longterm labour voter.
Theres definitely space alongside that for a lib dem showing of the flag, arguing against false social nostalgia, promoting a modern agenda on eg personal rights and challenging labour and reform on whether they genuinely democratically empower local communities or give lipservice to symbolic placeboes. Its in the interests of all the minor larties to be af devates pushjng him time sbd again over p.r. in particular.
TBH i expect voters to vote tactically and leave you the dregs, but this byelection will be the proxy for national debate for 1 to 2 months and you need to be in it and making your case. If bunham is going to be labour leader in 2029 and seeking smaller party backing to counter rdform he needs to see you as rekevant. Test him, push him. Dont rubbish him or insult him, but no person ir party deservss a free pass.
@ Peter Martin
Wes Streeting is very young, and his ambitions might allow him a couple of “stepping stones”. He has a worryingly small majority of about 526. If Starmer sacks Reeves, Wes might be happy with the Chancellor position, whilst “upgrading” himself, for a 2029 election. I have a lot of time for Angela Rayner and her back story, but let’s be realistic, she is not smart enough to deal with Britain’s problems, and I think she realises her limitations. Josh Simons has been offered *something* to give up his seat. Just to be clear, they (politicians), are not like normal folk; their level of deception and backstabbing would make Machiavelli blush. Thanks for your input Peter.
@ Tony Bunting,
“Unite to beat the dark politics of Reform”
Absolutely. We must do that. We all have an obligation to do whatever we can to keep out the far right. Even to the extent of voting LibDem, tactically, if the circumstances call for it. 🙂
I was a Labour Party member but resigned in protest against the dishonesty of Starmer in 2022. The take over of the Labour leadership by Starmer, McSweeney and Mandelson (with Blair in the grouping too) was always going to end badly
If Andy Burnham gets back I will rejoin.
I want Lib Dems to stand, and I want us to work as hard as possible. In an illiberal world, the liberal party has to be heard.
How to do that cost effectively and in a way that doesn’t damage credibility is the problem.
@Tony Bunting: As an ex-Labour member myself, welcome to the debate! It’s nice to see people of different affiliations contributing.
Now a question: If the situation was reversed and the LibDems were in a straight (possibly marginal) fight with Reform, do you think there is even the slightest chance that Labour would consider not fielding a candidate in order to give the LibDems a better chance? I think we all know the answer. Labour has even expelled members merely for suggesting tactical voting (https://labourlist.org/2025/03/labour-tactical-voting-liberal-democrats-non-battleground-seats/).
Definitely yes they should. I agree with Simon above. Would Labour ever stand down for a Lib Dem candidate at a by election in similar circumstances? No of course they wouldn’t. I would like to see a vigorous Lib Dem campaign giving Makerfield constituents good reason to vote for the party including some good social liberal policies such as the Guaranteed Basic Income, along with raising the tax threshold something neither Conservatives before or Labour in government are doing, and as someone mentioned above policies to decentralise power to communities giving them more say in how things are run including council tenants on estates. When we know the candidate, I would be happy to offer some financial support.
@ Simon
“If the situation was reversed and the LibDems were in a straight (possibly marginal) fight with Reform, do you think there is even the slightest chance that Labour would consider not fielding a candidate in order to give the LibDems a better chance?”
Neither the LibDems nor the Labour Party do this. Both, in certain circumstances, do run what are little more than paper candidates which is a sort-of de-facto way of standing aside.
I don’t see the point personally, but this seems to be the way it’s done.
Country before party. Everything must be done to keep Reform out of government, and winning this contest would give them a massive boost. There’s zero chance of a Lib Dem win, and it’s likely that in the absence of a candidate a fair few Lib Dems would vote Labour, especially if encouraged to do so, and very few would vote Reform. Not fielding a candidate would also demonstrate party seriousness about the progressive movement co-operating to defeat Reform. We should set aside purity-based arguments (voters should be given the option; would Labour do this for us, etc). We are heading for a political disaster which must be averted by all available means.
I wondered about this.
The conclusion I came to is that we should put forward a candidate but do the absolute minimum in the campaign. We have to give the option to people who don’t want to vote Labour or Reform to go somewhere, and having a candidate allows us to do this. However, we’re never going to win this in a month of Sundays, so throwing cash at it (even to simply rent an election HQ) is wasting money which could be more effectively spent elsewhere.
This by-election is about Labour’s Starmer problem and presumably a lot of guilt about appointing him in the first place. It is not for us to interfere with private grief. One interesting possibility would be to stand a candidate, fight one ward hard, see how the vote there compares to that in other parts of the constituency and what lessons can be learned for other Labour facing seats in the north.
I agree with Christine (Jardine) on Times radio this morning. It’s disrespectful to the voters not to give them the opportunity to vote Lib Dem or Green (Hannah Spencer MP believes they should stand), for that matter, in this constituency by standing down a candidate. Nothing ‘purist’ about it. Voters can vote tactically even with a full slate of candidates if they choose to. I also think it’s patronising telling voters who they should not vote for. Far better to challenge the policies of Reform on their substance rather than negative campaigning and a clear positive message of what the Lib Dems stand for. That is what voters would want to know.
A by-election is a by-election. Of course we should stand a candidate. If anything it would look bad if we didn’t, as it would look like we’re participating in a stitch-up.
I think we aren’t grasping the point about Reform, that they are part of a whole Far-Right ecology. The Demo in London yesterday, The Riots last Year, Tommy Robinson , Raise the Flags – they are all working together to make Racism & Violence Normal.
If Reform win this By-election the Thugs will emboldened to attack vulnerable minorities & make their lives a misery, if nothing worse.
In that context our standing a Candidate would working against everything we claim to stand for.
As an update to my “Andy Burnham is walking into a trap” comment.
Wes Streeting has just thrown some “bait” into the trap for Burnham. By announcing that he [Wes], will seek to re-join the EU, he has forced Burnham to say likewise to a Makerfield electorate. Makerfield is arguably the most Brexit-ey constituency in England. Andy Burham telling Makerfield that he too would seek to re-join the EU, will go down like the proverbial cup of cold sick.
Is it not obvious that Starmer, Streeting and Josh Simon intend to sacrifice the Makerfield seat, and *shred* the King of the North in the process? Whether LibDems stand in Makerfield or not, is immaterial. If Burnham accepts the challenge for that seat, we will all have a ringside seat to one of the biggest backstabbing events in political history.
To win the war you need to pick your battlegrounds.
If your objective is to gain real influence in government; to move us closer to Europe again; to open up the possibility of a fairer voting system and to make society more tolerant and fair the real battleground is to slay the spectre of Reform.
Makerfield is going to be a straight fight between Reform and Labour. Fighting hard in Makerfield is not a battleground to expend valuable resources on. By all means standing a candidate is worthwhile to give people who really want to vote LD a space on the ballot paper. I wouldn’t be choosing to expend too much effort in the campaign. A paper candidate sounds like a wise option.
On the Friday morning following the result, think how you might feel if Reform win by a few hundred votes and the news is all about Nigel Farage grinning like a cheshire cat claiming that he is the future of our country.
One other thing is that the media are reporting that Restore Britain are planning to throw the kitchen sink at it. Maybe they will dent the Reform vote. If true, all the more reason to step back slightly and make the morning news about how Restore Britain might split the forces of darkness.
The “we shouldn’t stand because it would help Яeform” argument is based on the assumption that most of the Lib Dem vote would go to Labour if we didn’t stand. This assumption is highly questionable. More likely our vote will be from people who are unhappy with the current Labour government and/or resent being used as pawns in a partisan power game, but would rather vote for Count Binface than for Яeform UK. In our absence, they’ll either vote Green or not at all. Look at Batley & Spen 2021, where we mainly targeted soft Tory voters in our strongest wards (which were mainly Tory-facing) and probably helped the Labour candidate get over the line by peeling the Tory vote away. Mid-Beds had a similar outcome, even though we were fighting that one to win.
All the evidence from local elections and by-elections is that most Labour, Green, or Liberal Democrat voters loathe Reform and will vote for one of the others if they think they can win against them. It’s true that in the past, Lib Dem voters denied a Liberal Democrat candidate have split all over the place, but Reform is different.
I would favour standing if the Party had shown a serious interest in low-income, urban, traditionally Labour areas. But since the general election there has been little more than lip-service and the latest round of local elections underlined the consequences.
All that has been said about Andy Burnham is correct. As Blairite Secretary of State for Health, he aggressively pushed PPI contracts. But in recent times he’s been saying some things that ought to interest us, especially as the next general election may well result in no overall control.
If we stood down and the Greens didn’t, that would highlight to the many “progressive” voters who consider voting for us or for the Greens, just how tribal and we-have-all-the-answers the Greens can be.
I would favour asking Burnham for undertakings on PR (which unquestionably has a lot of support in Labour now), on Care and on rethinking immigration and asylum policy (I don’t think we could go further than that) and if he gave satisfactory answers, standing down in his favour for one election only.
I agree with Keith Legg, put forward a candidate but do the absolute minimum in the campaign
@ Simon Costain “put forward a candidate but do the absolute minimum in the campaign”.
And what sort of respect does that show towards the electorate, Mr Costain ?
I think the idea of political “tribes” is sometimes taken too far. In particular, voters do not fall into line with tribal “leaders” to vote as instructed. And voters really don’t give a Castlemaine about partisan grievances such as criticism of an opposing party for daring to exercise its democratic rights by standing in a by-election. To illustrate this, compare and contrast how Labour activists and apparatchiks still make a fuss about what the Liberals allegedly did in the Bermondsey by-election, >40 years on, and how much this resonates with voters (practically zero).
The last (only?) time the Lib Dems have stood aside for a political opponent over a political principle was the Haltemprice & Howden (2008). It achieved nothing except to undermine our position as challenger in the constituency and stroke David Davis’ ego. Imagine if we’d stood aside for Zac Goldsmith in the 2016 Richmond Park by-election.
Surely there is an opportunity here to unite the pro EU vote around the Liberal Democrats and let the Brexiteers split between Burnham and Reform?
“Can the mayor of Greater Manchester also be an MP?
The mayor of Greater Manchester is prohibited from being an MP. This is because this mayor is also the Police and Crime Commissioner (PCC) for Greater Manchester.
A strategic authority mayor does not have to resign to stand for election as an MP, only if they are elected. If the mayor fails to be elected to the House of Commons, they will continue to be the mayor.
Section 67 of the Police Reform and Social Responsibility Act 2011 states that if a mayor with PCC powers becomes an MP, they are automatically disqualified as mayor (see also article 3 of the Greater Manchester Combined Authority (Transfer of Police and Crime Commissioner Functions to the Mayor) Order 2017).” House of Commons Library, posted yesterday.
One of the overlooked issues is “Should Andy Burnham resign as mayor BEFORE standing in the by election? How are Lib Dems Campaigning on this?
Yes, always stand a candidate and give voters the choice.
This is a self- inflicted wound by Labour, it is not the Lib Dems job to bail them out.