The ‘King of the North’ wants to lead Britain. First he must beat the far-right in a special election.

LONDON — A cluster of post-industrial towns in northwest England might be about to choose the country’s next prime minister.

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The people of Makerfield will on Thursday decide whether to vote Andy Burnham — mayor of Greater Manchester, often hailed “King of the North” — back into Parliament. If elected, he says he would challenge Prime Minister Keir Starmer as head of the ruling Labour Party — no public vote needed, thanks to the quirks of British politics.

Two years after a landslide victory, Starmer is the least popular British leader on record due to a perceived lack of personality, and a series of policy U-turns and scandals -- including appointing a friend of Jeffrey Epstein as ambassador to Washington.

By contrast, Burnham’s common touch and perceived empathy have helped make him the most popular politician in Britain , a country riven by stagnant wages, turbulent politics and the kind of racial tension that erupted in Northern Ireland this month.

The sense that most people’s lives are getting worse since Starmer became prime minister hangs over the election and the possible change in leadership .

“It’s an absolute mess, this country,” said Peter Thompson, 78, who runs Revolving Records, a vinyl store in Ashton-in-Makerfield. “Everything is just about broken and we need a change.”

While he is not a fan of Burnham’s, who he said was using Makerfield “as a stepping stone into No. 10 Downing Street ,” Thompson is not opposed to the political circus that’s descended on his community.

“It’s quite nice, actually,” he said, serving customers in his low-rise sidestreet store between a grocer’s and a patch of land used as a parking lot. “Everyone gets their 15 minutes of fame.”

Burnham should win if polls are correct. On Sunday the pollster Convergent had him on 49% and Reform UK, his main challenger led by Trump ally Nigel Farage, on 37%.

Burnham says if that happens he will trigger a leadership contest against Starmer. Secure that and he would be prime minister. That leaves Makerfield, with its former mining communities, red-brick terraces and close-knit community spirit, in the surprise position of deciding the fate of Britain.

It is a collection of post-industrial towns ( none of them actually called “Makerfield” ) whose population of 100,000 is around the size of Green Bay, Wisconsin. Like so many other places in regional Britain, its mines and mills have been replaced by retail and service industry jobs; its local stores now vape shops or vacant altogether.

This is the land of rugby league (a sport almost exclusive to the working class English north). Parts of it are remarkably green, with patchwork fields interspersing the red-brick terraces, and the old industrial landscape reclaimed by nature reserves and parks.

Burnham, 56, grew up around these parts and supports Everton soccer club in nearby Liverpool. He called the election “a clarion call for change , change for people in this part of the world, a place I love so much,” at his launch in May.

Though this is an ostensibly local election, his national message has been clear. He demanded a “change to the economy, change to education, change to housing, change to transport, change to care, and yes — to make it all possible — a change to politics.”

He suggested he would ease taxes on small businesses and increase defense spending — all while keeping the current government’s promise not to raise income tax. Some critics say this is an unrealistic pitch in a cash-strapped country. Burnham points to Manchester becoming the fastest growing economic area of Britain under his mayoralty.

The mayor’s main quality is that “he really looks like he is listening to people and feeling their pain,” said Ben Ansell, politics professor at the University of Oxford. And although “words alone won’t do the trick” for the economy, he said, “it’s probably better to have somebody who is going to speak positive words than somebody in a doomerish spiral.”

The man at the other end of this vibes spectrum is Starmer.

For all his alleged failures — from Peter Mandelson , whom Starmer fired after nine months as envoy to Washington when details emerged about his friendship with Epstein, to his own defense secretary quitting this week over the government’s alleged unwillingness to spend enough on the military — a major complaint among British voters is that Starmer is awkward, uninspiring and seems to have no worldview or vision of how to fix things.

Starmer’s defense is that he operates on substance, not style. He has vowed to challenge Burnham, or the ex-health secretary Wes Streeting, who would also likely stand in any leadership bout. He told the BBC this month he wants to “complete the work” he was elected to do, insisting his refusal to resign was not “stubbornness” but “ a very deep sense of duty .”

In Burnham he is fighting a recent Westminster outsider. He traveled the well-worn conveyor belt from Cambridge University to government adviser, before serving in cabinets of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown. But during his mayoralty he has sought to project an earthier image: a northern man-of-the-people, ditching the suits for the proletarian cool of a black jacket, t-shirt and jeans.

Since 2017 he’s been the mayor of Manchester, known globally as the home of Oasis and Manchester United soccer club, a cultural metropolis whose 1990s rave culture and “Britpop” revolution still reverberate globally.

Burnham’s challenger in Makerfield is Reform’s Robert Kenyon, a plumber-turned-councilor for the local government. A win would allow Farage to further derail Labour’s government ahead of the next general election, likely in 2029.

Kenyon says he wants a new local hospital and more police on the streets, as well as the rapid, mass deportation of illegal immigrants, and scrapping net-zero climate policies.

Yet he has become synonymous with historical social media posts, unearthed by the British media and now deleted, in which he declared: “I’m sexist, sorry but I am.” He wrote that women were unable to drive or referee sports, and some had abortions for “vanity purposes.”

Neither Reform nor Kenyon disputes the posts, Kenyon labeling them “crass” and admitting he “made mistakes.” His party said the statement came before he was a professional politician.

Kenyon and Burnham’s teams declined requests for an interview, saying they wanted to concentrate on British media ahead of the race.

Their battleground is a type increasingly relevant in Britain.

The population skews older, whiter (97%, in fact) and poorer than the rest of Britain: the type of place that used to vote Labour — which has won here for 100 years — but has recently shifted toward Reform. In a world of collapsing trust in public-facing institutions, voters say they are drawn by Reform’s promises of a radical change from the old Labour-Conservative Party duopoly.

“The best bet is Nigel Farage ,” said Thompson, the record-store owner.

Indeed Farage’s party would almost certainly triumph if up against any other Labour politician, polls suggest. But the Reform leader is being challenged from the (even further) right. Members of his party who want even harsher border controls have splintered off to form Restore Britain, which has gained support from Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, vociferously backing it on his X platform.

Reform and Restore are no doubt relying on support from pockets of deprivation, squalor and neglect in Makerfield. The nadir can be found in the village of Bickershaw in the form of a 25,000-ton dump of illegal, toxic waste that’s been rotting for months, is teeming with rats and has caught fire twice.

“It’s been a living hell,” said Nicha Rowson, 34, a beautician who lives 50 yards away. “The smells have been unbearable. We have had vermin in our houses and cars and now we are hitting summer we are scared it’s going to set on fire again .”

However, rather than turn her ire on the governing Labour Party, she intends to vote for Burnham.

“Before this we were being ignored and not listened to by authorities,” she said. “I feel if Andy Burnham becomes our local MP he will continue to support the clear-up and help others around us.”

If he wins, Burnham will have more than Bickershaw’s mountain of waste to clear. He will inherit a country that many believe has been left to fester.