BBC Radio Manchester — Makerfield Candidates Series Underway
BBC Radio Manchester is running a series of interviews this week with candidates for the 18 June Makerfield by-election. Andy Burnham took questions from presenter Mike Sweeney and audience members on Wednesday; Reform UK’s Robert Kenyon and Liberal Democrat Stockport councillor Jake Austin appear in the same series later in the week. The format — candidates fielding live audience questions — is the most direct constituency-level testing of campaign positioning to date. The writ for the by-election was moved by the Commons speaker after Josh Simons’s resignation; polling day is 21-27 days from the writ.
The Makerfield constituency lies to the west of Manchester and is home to about 76,000 voters in the suburbs of Wigan and nearby former mining towns and villages. The local-election context: Reform UK won 24 of 25 council seats in Wigan borough on 7 May; the borough contains the Makerfield constituency. Burnham himself won 66% of the vote in the 2024 Greater Manchester mayoral election in Wigan. Reform leader Nigel Farage has framed the contest as a “David versus Goliath battle” with the “Plucky Plumber” Kenyon taking on Burnham. The Lib Dem Austin pitch is “Makerfield deserves so much more than the failing Labour Government or the divisive politics of Reform UK”.