Ashton-in-Makerfield is a four hour drive from London.
It’s 3600 miles away from Washington DC.
It’s most famous for its 18th century production of locks, hinges and nails.
But this week, it might be about to write a new chapter of its history, a chapter which could go on to shape not just the UK’s, but international politics too. Here’s how:
Lancashire is a county in the North West of England.
The most well-known cities near Lancashire include Manchester to the East and Liverpool to the South West. The history and heritage of this area is rooted in the industrial revolution with coal-mining, textile mills and metal-working being the historic industries and trades of this region. The people of Lancashire learned their politics from fighting for basic rights in inhumane workplaces and striving to be recognised by those in power, out of sight in places like London.
This map, above (courtesy of the BBC) shows the Makerfield Parliamentary Constituency.
650 such constituencies exist across the UK and each is represented by a Member of Parliament (MP) who all sit in the House of Commons in Westminster, London. It’s their job to form Governments based around their parties, to vote on legislation in Parliament and of course, to represent their local communities often holding regular ‘surgeries’ with their constituents to hear about issues ranging from broken street-lights to international affairs.
Makerfield, in its various boundary forms over the years, has been solidly Labour. The Labour Party was formed in 1900 to stand up for communities exactly like those that make up Makerfield. Ashton-in-Makerfield, is the biggest town and population centre in the constituency today. An even bigger town, Wigan (known for its love of the sport Rugby League and the local art of serving pies inside bread rolls) sits to the north of the constituency but is not included in the boundaries.
In 2024, Josh Simons was elected as the Labour MP for Makerfield. It was amidst a huge victory for the Labour Party led by Keir Starmer. Josh Simons was an unknown character, a brand-new Labour MP in a pond of over 300 newly elected. His name didn’t stand out then and it wasn’t until he made a decision a month ago that his name got a lot more recognition than it had done in the past two years he has sat in Parliament.
On 14th May 2026, Josh Simons decided to stand down as the MP for Makerfield, triggering a by-election, which takes place when an election must be held in a constituency outside of the usual General Election timeline. This can be because an MP has resigned in disgrace, been forced out by a (pretty rare) petition by local residents, or died. Simons however, was choosing to stand down because he wanted someone else to take his place as the Labour MP for Makerfield.
That someone was Andy Burnham. I won’t give you a full history of Andy Burnham but as I try to write for everyone; from those of you politically engaged and those deliberately disengaged, here’s the essential need-to-know:
Andy Burnham is a born-and-bred northerner, from the North West of England.
He was a Labour MP for a constituency near Makerfield from 2001 - 2017.
During that time he was a Government Minister in various roles.
He left Parliament to become the Mayor of Greater Manchester.
During his time as Mayor he re-branded his image to match the relaxed, pop-culture focused vibe of Manchester. This earned him the (game of thrones inspired) nickname; the King in the North.
Burnham has been in the wings of the Labour Party for some time and as Keir Starmer’s leadership has continued to plummet in popularity, talk of a Burnham return to challenge him has been constant.
However, in order to challenge the leader of the Labour Party (who is also Prime Minister - remember, the party is elected not the person americans!), you must first be a Member of Parliament.
Josh Simon’s resignation solved that problem for Burnham and once the Labour Party’s National Executive Committee (NEC) authorised him as the candidate (they had blocked him previously in other constituencies to protect Keir Starmer), it was go-time for Burnham.
For the past few weeks, Andy Burnham has been leading a campaign on the ground in Makerfield and focusing on the population centre of Ashton as part of this.
The by-election is scheduled for Thursday 18th June (this week).
And given that he’s currently polling 10 points in the lead, you may think it’s a given that he will not only become the next Labour MP of Makerfield, but go on to challenge Starmer and become the next Prime Minister of the UK.
HOWEVER, this is politics, the art of the possible and if things were that certain you and I would be making money on a sure bet. Burnham’s main opposition are the young, upcoming far-right political party Reform UK. Led by Nigel Farage, Reform came close at the last General Election in Makerfield and that was before their surging even further in the polls as Starmer has continued to drag Labour downwards.
Farage is one of the most well-known british political figures in the world. The man who has ran several different political parties, all of which he started and bankrolled by millionaire and billionaire donors, this former banker turned political campaigner, is credited as the force behind Brexit (Brtain’s exit from the EU).
A close friend of Donald Trump, he has set Reform UK up to emulate much of what the MAGA movement did with the Republican Party. Now his ranks are full of former Conservative Party Ministers - highlighting that he has taken an insurgent political movement into the mainstream and now become the main right-wing party in Britain.
I probably don’t need to tell you at this point that I am opposed to everything Reform UK stands for. Much of my broadcast debating in recent years has been focused at tackling Reform and their supporters in the media and the UK political sphere. They have worked hand-in-glove with MAGA influencers and advisers in the US to champion ideas like the creation of a British ICE force to ‘re-migrate’ millions of people. Their various candidates and representatives have expressed racist, misogynistic, homophobic and bigoted opinions, in fact too many to mention. And much to the benefit of Andy Burnham, their candidate in Makerfield is no different.
Enter Rob Kenyon.
Again, for the sake of time, here’s my very biased write-up on Rob Kenyon;
A plumber who was born in Makerfield and lives locally.
A self confessed ‘sexist’ according to facebook comments.
A man who has made racist, misogynistic and bigoted comments all over various social media platforms in the past decade.
Believes abortion is used by women as an alternative contraception.
Has very little policy platform other than ‘end immigration’.
Farage thought Kenyon would be the perfect candidate, being able to flash his ‘working man’ credentials about the place as a Plumber. However, after very weak performances in places such as BBC’s Question Time, it seems that the shine has come off Rob Kenyon and hopefully that has left just enough doubt in the mind of swing voters to allow Andy Burnham to clinch the victory.
But here’s where I think it gets interesting.
The Greens, who have been the rising force on the left of British Politics for some time now under the new leadership of Zack Polanski, haven’t really been hitting Makerfield hard. They are standing a candidate but they aren’t pulling out all the stops. I would suggest this is because they have something to gain from a Burnham victory but this comes at the cost of losing something else.
The Greens have risen from the space vacated by Starmer’s Labour Party on the progressive side of Politics. Starmer trying to sound tough on Immigration one minute and anti-welfare the next has left lefties like me politically homeless only a couple of years after voting for his Government. Starmer isn’t idealogical though, so this drift to the right need never have happened, it is simply ill advised in my opinion, by people in the Labour-centric Labour Party who thought that the support for Reform and strong talk about Immigration in Northern working class communities meant they needed to ape Reform and Farage to curry favour.
The problem is, people see things. They know Labour dont really represent right-wing beliefs and no matter how big the anti-immigration hat is that they throw on, it’s not enough to take votes away from the real article; Nigel Farage and his comrades on the right of British politics. The entire time Labour have continued to try and bang this drum, I have seen right-wing voters continue to call them ‘marxist’ and ‘communist’, so not only does it have little to no effect on the Government’s attempts to pass its business in Parliament, but it does very little to convince the electorate either.
The Greens were beneficiaries of this and a Burnham leadership righting the ship would presumably take that opportunity away from them. However, Burnham has long been a supporter of changing the UK’s voting system - something he has in commons with smaller political parties like the Greens and Liberal Democrats. A new system called ‘proportional representation’ wouldn’t see constituencies like Makerfield decide who they are sending to Westminster, but would give each party a proportionate share of the national vote, meaning smaller parties would get better and fairer representation in Parliament. This wouldn’t benefit Labour, but Burnham sees it as essential to change our politics and look toward a new era of likely coalitions. It is because of this that I believe the Greens have slowed down deliberately in Makerfield, allowing Burnham to glide to victory (possibly).
As for the international impact of a Burnham victory, this is interesting to me on two particular fronts. Firstly, Starmer’s relationship with Trump has been mortifyingly embarrassing. It began with scraping and bowing as a strategy to appease Trump, despite been cautioned that this may get you smiles and handshakes in the meantime, but ultimately it makes the Predator President believe you are someone he can push around and he will.
It then continued with all sorts of characters around Trump’s leadership from Vice President JD Vance to Tech villain Elon Musk loudly criticising Starmer and his leadership in a way no ally should tolerate.
Burnham as Prime Minister is a much stronger figure and character, I cannot see him agreeing to a strategy that sees him look weak, we could see him take a Love Actually approach, but even if that is just wishful thinking, I believe Trump will have a much stronger push-back from Andy Burnham who knows thats what most British people would like to see.
Secondly, Burnham winning in Makerfield this week would slay the Reform UK dragon and see him prove that he can be the first person to resist their rise and fight back with progressive values that cut-across all communities. This will seriously worry Farage and his donors, as Burnham will be able to take that fight into Government and nation-wide. But more than this, the democrats, who often work closesly with the UK Labour Party, will be able to learn from his successes. We could see international progressive collaboration that works in not only fighting back against Reform and the British far-right, but also the MAGA movement and whatever will be unleashed after Trump’s rape of America comes to a close.
So, whatever happens on Thursday, I the implications could be much wider than just the North West of England. But also, these implications could be felt in the White House and throughout Europe, not to mention in pivotal places such as Gaza and Ukraine. Things really could be about to change.
On Thursday night I’ll be taking part in coverage of the Makerfield by-election, as well as analysis the following day. You can watch that coverage across the BBC and Sky News as well as other broadcasters such as LBC. Many will have live streams on youtube for internatonal audiences. Results expected to be clear around 1am - 2am.
And thank you for your patience loyal subscribers! It’s been nearly 4 weeks since my last post. I promise more are coming with a return to regularity, but I have some very exciting book-related news to come soon as well as a lot of work on other projects that have required my focus. I appreciate you as always and love to hear your feedback.
In solidarity,
James
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