Tag Archives: makerfield by-election

Josh Simons resigned his Makerfield seat this week. Andy Burnham confirmed within hours he would seek the NEC’s permission to stand, and the NEC has now cleared him to do so. A constituency most people couldn’t have placed on a map last week has become the most consequential by-election in a generation.

The question now is whether the Liberal Democrats should stand a candidate.

My answer is no, but not as an act of charity toward Labour. As a conditional offer, grounded in a straightforward calculation about what is most likely to advance the things we actually care about.

What the numbers say

Recent local elections in the Makerfield wards returned Reform on 50%, Labour on 23%, and the Greens on 11%. Britain Predicts models a general election baseline of Reform 41%, Labour 28%. Without Burnham as the Labour candidate, Reform takes this seat. With him, accounting for a substantial personal-vote bonus, the same model produces Labour 39%, Reform 36%. A narrow Labour hold. Remove that bonus, split the non-Reform vote further, and Farage’s people win.

Liberal Democrats have almost no presence in Makerfield. Standing a candidate here costs us very little in votes or resources. What it costs, if Reform wins, is something much more significant.

Why Burnham is different

Previous calls for Liberal Democrats to stand aside for Labour have rightly been treated with scepticism. The usual pitch (don’t split the progressive vote) asks us to subordinate our values to Labour’s convenience, with nothing concrete in return. That is not a case worth making.

This one is different, because the policy overlap is not vague and it is not new.

Burnham has been the most consistent internal Labour advocate for proportional representation, saying at the IPPR in January that it is “an idea whose time has come”. He built the Bee Network, the first integrated, publicly controlled bus and tram system outside London, using exactly the franchising model Liberal Democrats have advocated for years. He co-authored the Hillsborough Law, which Liberal Democrat MPs and peers backed comprehensively. He has championed a National Care Service, free at the point of need and integrated with the NHS, since 2010, a position that mirrors what Liberal Democrats delivered in Scotland over two decades ago and have campaigned for nationally ever since. He has called for Land Compensation Act reform, a fairer property levy, and an elected senate of the nations and regions to replace the Lords.

These are not rhetorical positions adopted for a by-election campaign. They are commitments Burnham has held across different offices and different political climates, often against the grain of his own party. They sit at the heart of what the Liberal Democrats stand for.