Burnham Campaign 21 Days From Polling; Green Chris Kennedy Joins Five-Way Race
Andy Burnham’s Makerfield by-election campaign has 21 days to polling day on 18 June. The Green Party announced Chris Kennedy, a nurse, as its candidate yesterday. Kennedy said “we can’t let this election be dominated by a Westminster psychodrama”. Burnham faces Reform UK’s Robert Kenyon, Conservative Michael Winstanley, Liberal Democrat Jake Austin and Green Chris Kennedy. The five-way race could split the protest-vote bloc, complicating Reform UK’s “David versus Goliath” framing. Recent polling has shown Burnham would comfortably win among Labour members in a leadership contest.
Reform UK 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. The Green Kennedy candidacy adds a fifth approved-list contestant and could split the protest-vote bloc that would otherwise concentrate behind Reform UK. Burnham’s slogan is “Vote Andy — For Us”; he secured music rights from Oasis for his first campaign video. Sir Keir Starmer has said he will be “100% behind” Burnham and would campaign personally for him — the political theatre of a Prime Minister campaigning for a leadership-rival-in-waiting now defines the next three weeks. The Iran escalation makes the political-risk backdrop materially more contested.