The road from Wigan Pier - in the end it wasn't close

In the end it wasn't close. Andy Burnham, the now former mayor of Greater Manchester, was returned to Westminster with a resounding victory - his 24,937 votes were more than all the other candidates combined - 55%.

He significantly boosted - almost doubled - Labour's majority in the constituency, and seems to have persuaded more disaffected Labour voters to turn out and vote for the party. Or maybe just vote for him.

Few in this suburban constituency to the south of Wigan town saw this vote as anything other than a referendum on Kier Starmer, the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. And Andy Burnham cannot conceal the fact that he is going back to Westminster to oust Mr Starmer.

In the Edge Centre, a conference venue cum church that sits in an industrial estate across the road from Wigan Pier, Mr Burnham arrived shortly after 2.30 am to hear the declaration of the result and address the crowd present and the nation at home.

His victory speech didn’t overtly state that challenging Mr Starmer was his next step. But it didn’t conceal it either.

When he came onto the stage, Mr Burnham was in curious company, wedged in between veteran serial candidate Count Binface (95 votes) and a young man dressed up as a fox who stood as an anti animal-cruelty candidate. When he stepped up to the microphone to speak, he found himself beside Howling Laud Hope, the leader of the Official Monster Raving Loony Party, dressed in all white, with a big white cowboy hat and yellow badges that said 'Loony'.

But Mr Burnham likes a stunt or two himself, and seems to be of the school of thought that there is no such thing as bad publicity. The presence of the Loony, Fox guy and Binface added a surreal touch to the quest for votes and recognition that all politicians crave. But it didn’t throw the freshly minted MP.

"Everyone knows that politics isn't working," he began. "Everyone can feel that the country isn't where it should be.

"Tonight could - just could - be the turning point."

He pledged to "give everything I have got to make it so, to ensure the name Makerfield is forever synonymous with bringing about the change this country needs, bringing back something we've lost: hope - hope for the future," he told a crowd of election workers, counting staff and media.

Pushing back on a claim by opponents he said Makerfield will not be a stepping stone, but a touchstone - promising a "Makerfield test at the heart of British politics (that) will ensure the places Westminster has neglected will now get fairness".

He said that last month's local elections, in which Reform UK got half the votes cast in the eight wards that make up the Makerfield constituency - the people made a loud demand for change.

"In this campaign, we have begun to answer 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.

He warned his own party: "We must hear it, we must act upon it, and we must get it right. There will be no second chance."

Speaking of his love for Greater Manchester, and the job of Mayor he had held for the last nine years he said of the region: "I've always been clear that it can't achieve everything it should be, and we can't close the north-south divide, and we can't make all the great English cities be what they should be without big change at the national level.

"I always knew one day I would seek to go back to Westminster to complete that unfinished business, so that Makerfield and Greater Manchester and the north of England can fulfill their potential.

"I will forever be grateful to them that they have given me the chance to go back and make this country work for Makerfield, and the many places, places like it across the country who have been neglected, who feel that the country works for other people in other places, but not for them, and that changes tonight. This result changes that."

"This result," he declared, "will bring about a country that works fairly for everywhere and for everybody. People here have voted for change, they have voted for more power for the north and everywhere forgotten by Westminster. They have voted for hope. Now let's give that back to them."

Clearly it was a speech that skirted the elephant in the room - the prime minister, and the perceived necessity to remove him from office and install Mr Burnham in his stead in order to bring about the changes he says the people want. It seems he regards the outcome of this by-election as giving him a mandate to be the change agent at the top, he says is so urgently needed.

Reform UK, the party led by Nigel Farage, came second with 34 and a half percent. That party’s campaign bus bore the slogan 'vote Reform to get Starmer out'. Its candidate, local plumber Rob Kenyon became a councillor last month, when Reform ran in the English local elections under the same slogan.

So the two top horses in a two-horse race both had the same objective: get rid of Sir Kier.

Burnham's career would surely have suffered if he lost

If Reform had won the by-election it would have been the worst of all worlds for Labour: a sign the electorate rejects the party and is prepared to take a chance on a new populist party of the right; and the political death of Labour’s leading internal change candidate, Mr Burnham. For his career would surely have suffered terminal damage if he had lost.

The resulting weak Labour party, shorn of the politician many think is its last best chance of not going down in flames, would have made for easy pickings for a buoyed up Reform UK, and its leader Nigel Farage.

Mr Farage was nowhere to be seen overnight at the count centre in the Edge conference and events space in Wigan.

Some journalists posted on X that he had left the constituency - a claim later denied by the Reform party. But if he was still in Wigan he was not making himself available to the media.

Someone who was making themselves available, just after midnight, was Rupert Lowe, leader of Restore Britain, the party he had set up in February after a massive falling out with Nigel Farage. Since then it has been backed by Elon Musk, the world's richest man.

Restore Britain came in third with 6.7% of the vote.

Explaining his party’s appeal he said: "I think the British people are stirring. I think they’ve had enough of the failure that they’ve seen in both governments and the civil service".

The wealthy businessman, who had a spectacular falling out with Nigel Farage at the end of last year - he calls it an assassination attempt by Mr Farage - offers himself and like-minded colleagues as a solution to these failures.

The Conservative candidate was forthwith just over 2%.

Indeed for three of Britain’s biggest parties it was a dreadful night: The Tories, the Greens and the Liberal Democrats combined share of the vote was slightly less than 3%. Combined.

Reform has now replaced the Conservatives in Makerfield, gaining the same share the Tories did in the 2024 general election.

The result is expected to increase pressure on Prime Minister Kier Starmer to step down, or face an open challenge to his leadership of the party and the country.

Mr Burnham and his allies are hoping the extremely strong election victory will so fundamentally alter the electoral calculus of Mr Starmer that he gives up and arranges an orderly transition of power over the summer, so a new prime minister is in office by the autumn.

They say Mr Starmer could go with dignity, ensure his legacy, and give Mr Burnham time to prepare for government.

But if Mr Starmer decides to stand his ground, there could be a very ugly fight in which reputations are trashed, the party is damaged, and the country is left to drift at a time of exceptional international danger. Exactly the kind of circumstances that Mr Farage and his colleagues in Reform would thrive on.

For now, Mr Burnham sets off on the road from Wigan Pier to become an MP in Westminster. But it also looks like the beginning of a journey that leads to a head-on collision with his party leader.

We have to wait and see if that happens quickly or slowly.