‘Hugely significant’: biggest ever byelection will test nation’s mood – and Burnham’s credentials

‘Hugely significant’ race for Manchester mayor will give clues on whether PM-in-waiting can turn tide against Reform UK

Andy Burnham was delivered to the steps of Downing Street after one of the most consequential parliamentary byelections in recent British history.

But it is the race to be his successor as Greater Manchester mayor that could reveal far more about the mood of the nation than the historic – and unique – contest in Makerfield.

More than 2 million people will be eligible to vote on 30 July, making it the biggest ever byelection in Britain. Even with a turnout of about 30%, the verdict of more than 600,000 voters will help answer some of the most fundamental questions facing each of the main parties.

Will Keir Starmer’s resignation resurrect Labour from the doldrums of the May elections? Or can Nigel Farage give Burnham a bloody nose just 10 days into his likely premiership?

The so-called “king of the north” never won less than 60% of the vote in each of his three victories since 2017, when he swapped Westminster for the newly created mayoralty.

This time, however, Burnham is not on the ballot paper and Reform UK was the biggest winner in Greater Manchester just seven weeks ago, gaining 106 councillors and wiping out Labour strongholds in Wigan, Tameside and Rochdale.

Yet Farage has suffered two humiliating defeats in parliamentary byelections in this corner of England – losses made worse by the rapid rise of Rupert Lowe’s hardline Restore Britain. And the Reform UK leader appears increasingly embattled as he is dogged by questions about the £5m donation from the crypto tycoon Christopher Harborne and growing scrutiny of his wealth.

On the opposite end of the political spectrum, the Green party is vying to turn its recent Manchester success into its first big seat of power in British politics. Can Zack Polanski’s party show that victories in Gorton and Denton and the local elections were not just an anti-Starmer protest vote?

“This byelection is hugely significant on lots of levels,” said Luke Tryl, the executive director of the More in Common thinktank. “Andy Burnham’s premiership would get off to quite a bad start if Labour lost. It’s England’s second city and so who runs it has huge significance because it elevates them on to the national stage.”

The prize is the most powerful mayoralty outside London. The mayor of Greater Manchester controls a £3bn annual budget and powers across housing, health, policing and transport, centred around a city that has grown faster economically than anywhere else in the UK over the past decade.

With four weeks until polling day, Labour is clear favourite with political experts and bookmakers. But a contest that is unprecedented in size and substance has the potential to throw up surprising results.

Privately, some Labour insiders expect its vote share to be at least 10 percentage points down on Burnham’s 63.4% in 2024.

This is significant, because the contest will then be decided by the “supplementary voting” system – if no single party achieves 50% then second-choice preferences will come into play.

Labour is widely seen as having an advantage under this system as they are more likely to be picked as the second choice of Greens, Lib Dems and even some Conservatives. Reform UK , by contrast, cannot count on such broad support.

“There are big questions about [whether] Reform are just too polarising to pick up second preferences,” said Tryl. “The real battle almost becomes who makes it into that second round [between Reform UK and the Green party]. That will give us our first test of whether Burnham has managed to reunite the left and squeeze the Greens .”

Despite a poll last week putting Labour just three points ahead of Reform UK, within the margin of error, and the Green party in a distant third, Polanski’s party is delivering leaflets claiming “It’s Green or Reform in Greater Manchester”. The leaflets come with a chart suggesting Labour’s support has fallen by 40 percentage points in the region over the past two years.

Labour’s candidate, Bev Craig, the leader of Manchester city council, said the loss of 108 councillors only seven weeks ago was “sobering”, particularly in the urban Manchester wards where the Greens won 17 seats, in part over anger about Starmer’s position on Gaza.

Reform won 106 seats overall, including all but one of the 25 up for grabs in Wigan and 18 out of 19 in Tameside, once solidly Labour areas.

Yet with Starmer gone, Craig said she was “really confident that with the change of leader the protest votes we saw in the May local elections will return back to the Labour party ”.

Craig, who took over the city council five years ago aged 36, is one of the brains behind Burnham’s success, having held the economics brief in his mayoral team. She has promised free bus travel for all 11- to 18-year-olds and will next week unveil a new town centres fund.

The Greens came fifth in this contest two years ago, narrowly behind Reform UK with 7% of the vote in a first big runout for its rising star Hannah Spencer , the 35-year-old plumber who stormed to victory in Gorton and Denton in February.

Geraldine Coggins, the Green candidate, said her party’s “unprecedented” wins – not just in Gorton, but making inroads in Bolton and Salford and securing 37% of the vote in Manchester – showed that voters finally believed it could beat the two big parties.

“ In the past people didn’t think we could win and [… we have] really put all those myths to bed,” she said. “It’s shown that actually it’s Greens and Reform winning across Greater Manchester.”