Polls close in historic Makerfield byelection that could see Andy Burnham elected and pave way for end of Starmer – UK politics live

Burnham said the vote against Labour at the local elections was “a loud cry for change”. He went on:

double quotation mark We have begun to answer that to that.

But I do say to my own party - this is a final chance to change.

This is what people said directly to me on the hundreds of doorsteps that I stood on.

We must hear it. We must act upon it, and we must get it right.

There will be no second chance, but it is a chance now, from this result tonight, to build a new politics based on unity and hope, turning away from the path that takes us to a divided, politics of the kind we’ve seen in the United States. We must now take this path and put this country back on the right path, and bring people back together and get things working properly again.