Burnham Makerfield Campaign 20 Days to Go; Five-Way Race With Green Kennedy
Andy Burnham’s Makerfield by-election campaign has 20 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. Burnham’s slogan is “Vote Andy — For Us”; he secured music rights from Oasis for his first campaign video.
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. 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 18 June by-election 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.