For a few short weeks, the centre of political gravity in Britain has shifted from the Palace of Westminster to the bar of a former Labour club in Wigan. Most mornings outside Stubbs Cross Community Centre in Ashton-in-Makerfield, a queue of 20 MPs snakes round the building as they patiently wait to clock in for their doorstep shifts on behalf of Andy Burnham. The spectacle of colleagues making the pilgrimage has been described by one MP as “like watching power change hands in a pub garden” – a few loyalist MPs looking at their shoes on the outskirts of the throng while others eagerly seek praise from Burnham’s most influential fixers, Louise Haigh and Anneliese Midgley.
The national picture
Two hundred miles south, Prime Minister Keir Starmer insists he will fight to stay in No 10, yet the walls appear to be crumbling around him. The resignation of Defence Secretary John Healey on Thursday has deepened the sense of crisis. Voters in Makerfield – though no one in the area would ever call it by that name – have not a good word to say about Starmer, even if many struggle to articulate exactly why. The by-election, precipitated by the resignation of the sitting MP Josh Simons, is not merely about electing a new member of Parliament; it is a manufactured contest designed to give Burnham a parliamentary seat from which he could challenge Starmer’s leadership. If elected, Burnham would be legally required to step down as Mayor of Greater Manchester, triggering a separate mayoral by-election.
The ground war in Wigan
Why is this corner of Greater Manchester the focus of so much national attention? The answer lies in the belief – shared by many inside and outside the Labour Party – that Andy Burnham is the only Labour politician who can stand a chance at beating Reform UK. It is a seat that once looked so impossible to win that some of Burnham’s closest friends advised him to turn down the offer from Josh Simons to fight it. But now, if the polls are to be believed, Burnham is on the brink of proving his own concept: that his brand of Labour politics can hold back the tide of right-wing populism that has surged across the country.
Inside the community centre, MPs pocket souvenir beer mats printed with a ubiquitous Stanley Chow cartoon of Burnham and the slogan “Brewed Round Here”. The artist, who is of second-generation immigrant background, has taken legal action against Reform UK, accusing the party of “weaponising” the caricature. On the doorsteps, volunteers are briefed to tell undecided voters they are from “Andy Burnham’s campaign” rather than the Labour Party. Over the next week, the campaign will target roughly 16% of undecided voters who have told canvassers they are still making up their minds between Labour and Reform, though strategists say the number has narrowed since the BBC’s Question Time last week, which held a special episode focused on the by-election.
The Labour ground operation is relentless. At the weekend, 450 volunteers came to canvass. By the end of the coming week, activists will have knocked on every door in the constituency five times over. Among the MPs out on a daily basis are members of the Corbynite socialist campaign group, shoulder to shoulder with ministers and ambitious MPs from the 2024 intake. Constituency Labour parties are sending busloads of activists, and staffers are staying in cabins in local people’s gardens. There is an open admission of fear about how the party will even manage the number of eager volunteers on polling day without aggravating local voters by pestering them too much.
At the centre of it all, the “boys’ club” who were the power brokers in Starmer’s leadership have been replaced by a formidable band of female operators. There is Anneliese Midgley, the MP for Knowsley and a battle-hardened Unite and Labour organiser; Louise Haigh, the former transport secretary who has become one of Burnham’s closest confidantes; and Sally Jameson, the Doncaster MP and former prison officer. “She is the oracle and the gatekeeper for Andy,” one MP says of Haigh. Together they are running a campaign that deliberately avoids attack literature against Reform or Restore Britain. Instead, almost all the MPs who canvass agree with residents that change is desperately needed.
Residents themselves are keen to engage in long chats about national issues – immigration, tax, transport – as well as local flooding, housing, antisocial behaviour, vacant shops and the future of local services. Some are unimpressed by Burnham’s unabashed sights on No 10, but for others that ambition is precisely the basis of his appeal. “He is our best electoral asset and people are genuinely quite shocked when he turns up to see them in person,” one campaign source said. “They are starting to feel it’s worth one more roll of the dice.” On Tuesday, Burnham gathered more than 100 people at a town hall meeting for a three-hour session of questions.
Implications for Starmer
Outside on the terrace as they waited for their canvassing instructions, MPs have begun to talk about the result – and Burnham’s subsequent return to Westminster – as a foregone conclusion. Talk has turned to whether Burnham will challenge Starmer, and the feeling is that he will. Yet those at the heart of the ground campaign are hesitant to look beyond next Thursday. They are wary of the habitual non-voters who turned out in significant numbers for Reform in the local elections, where the party swept all the wards in the Makerfield area, winning 24 out of 25 council seats. Nationally, Reform UK has surged: polling in May 2026 put them at 27.8% of the vote share, ahead of Labour on 19.9% and the Conservatives on 18.3%.
Reform’s campaign in Makerfield made a huge effort to establish a visual presence early. Boards went up along all the major roads within hours of the announcement – faster than Labour could get theirs to the printers. The result is a dominant turquoise presence along many major arteries, though there are competing navy boards of Restore Britain on many of the streets. On one digital board, the bright hoarding alternates unnervingly between Restore and Burnham’s “For Us” slogan. Labour canvassers believe Rupert Lowe’s Restore could end up with more than 10% of the vote. Some Restore voters described Lowe as less extreme than Nigel Farage, citing his positions on animal welfare and allowing children out of school for holidays; others are clearly attracted by his far more radical remigration policies and support for a referendum on reinstating the death penalty. Elon Musk has publicly supported Lowe and Restore Britain.
The area has a historically significant far-right vote, including about 7% for the British National Party as recently as 2010. While Restore may ultimately help Burnham win the seat – by splitting the right-wing vote – it also poses a threat to the legitimacy of his victory. There are already murmurs among MPs that if the split on the right is the reason for his win, it would cast doubt on his narrative. But that is a problem for a week’s time. Until polling day, Haigh and Midgley aim to get Burnham physically in front of as many of the 13,000 undecided voters as possible. “The message is not anti-Reform,” one campaign source said. “The message is he is coming back to Westminster to change Labour. We want to be hopeful about the country again and put working people back at the heart of our economy.”
