Manchesterism vs Faragism: How Makerfield Could Define the Politics of a Generation

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 Labour Party, who have won the seat in every general election since 1906, yet the overwhelming phenomenon in contemporary British politics of Labour support bleeding away in its former working-class homelands means Makerfield, rather than being a contest, is widely expected to be one of the first seats lost in the Reform tidal wave that is just over the horizon. The seat sits 29^th on Reform’s target list and achieved the 6^th highest Reform vote of any seat at the 2024 general election. Yet the unique circumstances of this by-election mean neither party can be confident of a victory that, whichever way it goes, could define the politics of a generation. 

For the first time since 1965, an MP has explicitly resigned in order to make way for somebody outside of parliament. The seat’s former MP Josh Simons has created a path for Andy Burnham, Mayor of Greater Manchester, King in the North, expert in losing Labour leadership contests, political chameleon and darling of the Soft Left, a route back to Westminster to stake his claim to the Labour leadership. Be in no doubt therefore, this by-election is the most important since Warrington in 1981 or even Westminster Abbey in 1924. Not just because it could kick the final nail into Keir Starmer’s well prepared coffin, but because it could reshape the political battleground of Britain. 

Makerfield is the classic Red Wall seat. Ex-mining, white working-class, Brexit voting, it’s a constituency in which Labour won 73% of the vote in 1997 and a majority of 26,000 over the Conservatives, yet by 2019 that majority had shrunk to just 4,700. In 2024, when that Conservative vote collapsed, it did not return Labour to its comfortable majorities of the past century but rather pushed a surge in Reform support. Reform, under any and all projections, look certain to win this seat at the next general election. In the council elections that cover the constituency, Labour lost all 22 of the seats it was defending, each and every one going to Reform. The people of Makerfield seem receptive to Farage’s narrative of betrayal and national renewal.

So why has Andy Burnham convinced Josh Simons to resign and make way, why has he gambled his political future and political credibility on this by-election when any sane man would be running down to Ladbrokes to put the wife and kids on a Reform victory. Burnham knows his political future may hinge on this by-election result. Why is Burnham betting his political future on a constituency that has spent thirty years moving away from Labour politics? Because Burnham doesn’t represent the Labour politics of the past three decades, not anymore at least. Burnham has tap-danced his way from his Blairite roots, past his Brownite past and into the heart of the Soft Left, presenting his ideas and politics as ‘Manchesterism’, encapsulated fundamentally by a decentralisation of political power and a deprivatisation of economic power. His policies in Manchester of renationalisation, council house building and reindustrialisation have undoubtedly delivered economic growth to the city and region. Burnham is separate from the Labour brand because he can claim success, ideas and a coherent narrative. Three things that the current Labour leadership lack.

The reason this is so critical for the future of the Labour Party is that it might just work, and if it does, British electoral politics will be, once again, transformed. Voters in Labour heartlands have shown no interest in Starmer’s quasi-Blairite managerialism, they may just be interested in the coherent semi-nostalgic vision put forward by Burnham. Manchesterism’s narratives of a return to a Britain before Thatcherism could allow Labour to compete, for the first time, on the same nostalgic terrain currently monopolised by Reform. If Manchesterism works it could just save the working-class seats which Labour are, at present, set to lose to Nigel Farage by the hundred. 

But Burnham has one enormous hurdle to clear before any of this is possible. Makerfield. You can bet your house on Farage and Reform throwing the kitchen sink at this by-election, to not do so would be unthinkable. History does not smile in Burnham’s direction either. Of the two enormous by-elections of the previous century, Westminster Abbey in 1924 and Warrington in 1981, the exciting challenger representing the politics of change who threatened to disrupt the Westminster system came a close second, and their transformative politics, dominant of the headlines at the times, quickly faded into obscurity, successfully swallowed up. Nor does the history of by-elections triggered in an attempt to return an outsider into parliament smile on Burnham. The last time this was attempted was in 1965 when Labour backbencher Reginald Sorensen was kicked upstairs to allow Foreign Secretary Patrick Gordon Walker back into parliament after the latter lost his Smethwick seat in the 1964 general election. Gordon Walker however lost the resultant 1965 by-election, despite it being held in the safe seat of Leyton, the east London voters not happy they were being used as a Westminster football. Similarly, when the Conservative Party coronated the Earl of Home as Prime Minister in 1963, despite him being in the Lords, the need for a by-election to allow him to return to the Commons prompted Iain MacLeod to write that an Eton ‘magic circle’ had conspired to denigrate the office of Prime Minister, a criticism Alec Douglas-Home would go on to say cost him and his party victory in the 1964 general election.

Whilst Andy Burnham’s politics of Manchesterism may well be capable of taking the fight to Reform and Farage, his route back to Westminster is, at best, problematic. History does not smile on coordinated by-elections, nor does it smile on candidates promising to disrupt the Westminster system. A Manchester Magic Circle have conspired to find a route to get Andy Burnham back into Westminster. If he gets there, they will conspire to find him the keys on Number 10. His ideas of Manchesterism may well be the only credible plan for Labour to prevent losing heaps of support to Reform, but he still has plenty of hurdles to clear before he gets there. Burnham, Manchesterism and the Manchester Magic Circle don’t have dignity on their side, nor history, but they may just have right on their side.

Image: Flickr/LBJ Presidential Library (Jay Godwin)

Licence: public domain.

No image changes made.