Sunday Politics — “Can Starmer Survive?” Question Dominates Morning Shows
The Sunday morning political shows today are dominated by the leadership question, with the previous week’s edition of the BBC’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg explicitly titled “Can Starmer Survive?”. The Makerfield by-election on 18 June is the operational testing ground: a Burnham win is widely seen as the launch pad for a formal leadership challenge; a Burnham loss would, on his allies’ own admission, end his ambitions. Reform UK’s Robert Kenyon — a local plumber who came within 5,399 votes of Josh Simons in 2024 — is the operational test of whether Labour’s migration tightening and Burnham’s personal pull are enough to check Reform’s advance into traditional Labour territory.
Reform comfortably won every ward in the Makerfield constituency at the 7 May local elections; Burnham himself won 66% of the vote in Wigan in the 2024 Greater Manchester mayoral election. Pollsters have signalled that having Burnham running will significantly boost Labour’s chances of retaining the seat, but the contest remains tough. Lib Dem candidate Jake Austin, a Stockport councillor, is the third candidate. The leadership-and-chancellor question now defines the next four weeks of UK politics ahead of the 18 June Makerfield vote — with Reeves’s rearguard, Burnham’s wealth-tax openness and Starmer’s “Operation Save Starmer” pivot the three strands to watch.