It is somewhat rare for an election to proffer signs that are simultaneously encouraging yet brutal for a party in British politics, but the Makerfield by-election proved just that for Reform UK. The result, while confirming that the party has decisively supplanted the Conservatives as the premier force on the British right, nevertheless exposed the possibility that Reform’s rise has itself birthed a coalition capable of stopping it. The encouragement is obvious; Reform amass

Carnage. I think that is the best way to put it. Massive council wins for Reform and an evisceration of Welsh Labour, epitomised by First Minister, Eluned Morgan, being ejected at break-neck speed from her Senedd seat, has rubbed salt into Labour’s backbench anxiety. The threshold for triggering a leadership challenge against the PM, the elusive and seemingly far-fetched 81 MPs, has been surpassed within the space of 48 hours. The only element that’s missing is a leader of th

On the surface Andy Burnham’s victory in Makerfield is unremarkable, if anything the 20% gap over second-placed Reform is a shining example of how Labour has lost significant swathes of support in the constituencies where historically the Labour vote had to be weighed rather than counted. Makerfield, an ex-mining, working class seat that has voted Labour since 1906 saw 35% of its electorate vote for a right-wing party. The result seemingly represents the phenomenon that has b

The parliamentary theatre that played out on the stage of Westminster last week, the kind this country has become so used to in recent years, has resulted in a strange and uniquely British political situation. The future direction of the government, the Prime Minister, the Labour Party and the country will depend on the votes of some 80,000 people in the suburbs of Wigan and its neighbouring towns. A by-election in the constituency of Makerfield should be a shoe in for the L