The election of Andy Burnham in Makerfield on 18 June was a push-back of Reform at their height. This is a constituency where Reform got just over half the vote in the 7 May 2026 local elections, reduced to 35% on 18 June 2026.

These results show that those who blame the rise of Reform on the Starmer leadership of the Labour Party are right, at least in part. With a campaign that was openly about “changing Labour” and almost as openly about removing Starmer’s leadership, Labour’s share of the vote rose to 55%.

There remains a long way to go in fighting Reform however. They still got over fifteen thousand votes. Worse, their far right rival Restore were the third placed party on over three thousand. Labour canvassers in Makerfield noted that Restore had an active doorstep campaign in areas such as Worsley Mesnes with flag-carrying supporters walking the streets, and – just like Reform – intimidation of Labour voters from displaying window posters.

There is a long way to go in the Labour Party too. As recently as February the Labour NEC ‘officers group’ – including representatives of two trades unions – voted to block Burnham from standing in Gorton and Denton, where there is no doubt that he could have won on a similar scale. What has changed is that Labour’s right wing have decided that Burnham’s is the ‘unity candidate’ for leadership (as Labour Together members were describing him to other canvassers during the campaign). Party employees across the country were directed to Makerfield, and MPs told by whips to attend.

Whether Starmer will try to hold on or not is an unknown, but it is clear that a Burnham leadership campaign will be more about presentation than policy. His disavowal at the start of the campaign of his own role in the Blair government – refering to ‘40 years of wrong direction’ – and focus on ‘failed privatisations’ faded during the month. Reference to ‘places like this’ and ‘collaborative politics’ came to the foreground.

Burnham has previously criticised the Starmer leadership for being “narrow and factional’, creating a “climate of fear” in the party, and criticised suspension of party members for their social media ‘likes’ and Labour MP’s suspension from the parliamentary party “for trying to protect disability benefits”. But he has linked that last to a removal of the whipping system, rather than any fight in the party for the PLP to be accountable to the party.

Burnham has not said one word about democratisation of the party. He has not referred once – even at events such as the Labour Unions rally during the campaign – to policies passed at the last Labour Party conference such as reversing Tory cuts and austerity, wealth tax, defence of leave to remain, or expanding collective rights for workers.

He has not said one word about policies passed at the North West regional conference of the party for public ownership of water or the removal of asylum-seekers accommodation from the profiteers Serco.

And the Makerfield CLP had no more say in the campaign in Makerfield than the Gorton & Denton CLP had in February there.

But the ripples in the party that a challenge from him for Labour leadership will create will provide an opportunity for the left in the party and unions to do those things, linking them to a programme for party democracy including abolition of the National Policy Forum and a sovereign policy-making annual conference, local parties right to selection their own candidates unimpeded, mandatory reselection of MPs, and other reforms.

A left candidate in that leadership election – from the Socialist Campaign Group of MPs, for example – would be an important organising opportunity to push those arguments, but the opportunity to push them has already opened. The debate in the party has opened about what change is needed, thousands of party members have been mobilised in this campaign, and there has been a (small, but measurable) uptick in party membership.

Harriet Harman is already lobbying for the a leadership election to take place just among MPs, preventing party members and affiliates from having any role. It seems unlikely she will be successful in that, but it is part of a campaign from the right to constrain the contest, once it comes. It is our job to stop that from happening.

In Burnham’s mayoral area of Greater Manchester a new challenge has opened too. There will now be a by-election for GM Mayor, and party activists in the area are already organising leafleting to kick off that campaign. It will be the first mayoral election since 2021 to be contested under ‘supplementary vote’ – with second choices counted in the event no candidate gets 50% in the first – making that campaign all the more important for activists in that area.

But most important is for the left in the party and affiliated unions to get organised to use the oppprtunities to reactivate local party organisations, fight for party democracy, and argue for a change of direction in the party, not just a more human face at the top.