Every Thursday there is an exotic bird auction at the Stubshaw Cross Community Club on the outskirts of Ashton-in-Makerfield, south of Wigan.The club is also the byelection headquarters and the Downing Street-in-exile of Andy Burnham, the Greater Manchester mayor and so-called “King of the North” who hopes to unseat Keir Starmer as UK prime minister.This Thursday, as the exotic bird dealers gather at Stubshaw, Burnham’s team will mount their get-out-the-vote operation from the games room next door, as the Makerfield constituency decides Britain’s most important byelection in decades.What sort of exotic bird might Burnham be?A northern cardinal, perhaps – he would be Labour’s first Catholic prime minister, while its bright red plumage matches Labour’s crimson. Or perhaps he would be a tropical parrot, repeating in Westminster the colourful, snappy lines that he is as adept at delivering as the present UK prime minister is not.Starmer, meanwhile, is surely an ostrich, with his head buried in the sand as he stubbornly insists he will fight on for his full five-year time, while all around him his party prepares for his looming successor.Change does seem to be in the air for the UK’s Labour Party and also for Britain. If the polls are correct – Burnham’s lead over Reform UK is anything from five points to eight – change will begin later this week.The atmosphere was skittish at a Labour Party event addressed by Starmer down south in Waterloo recently, but there was an undeniable outbreak of raw optimism up at Stubshaw Cross last Saturday morning.An Andy Burnham poster in Ashton-in-Makerfield. Photograph: Mark Paul Labour really believes it has the beating of Reform here – a feeling that has long been absent in the party under Starmer’s leadership.The air on Saturday crackled with an energy that has not been seen in the party since its victorious general election campaign in the summer of 2024.Buses from all over ferried activists to Makerfield to canvass for Burnham. Parked cars clogging up the road – a christening party at St Wilfred’s church next door couldn’t find a spot anywhere.Burnham was, at that stage of the morning, nowhere to be seen at Stubshaw, but other senior Labour figures were. Angela Rayner, the former deputy prime minister, arrived to a sea of selfie requests. She posed with fellow parliamentarians and trade union activists, including members of the Fire Brigades Union.Rayner seems on course for a return to cabinet under Burnham, and sources say she covets her old role. There is no suggestion so far that she will get it. But with Starmer’s time seemingly nearing an end and the party’s power base shifting north, Rayner’s return to the top table of British politics seems assured.The enthusiastic canvassers included members of Labour’s 2024 intake, such as Adam Jogee, the ambitious MP for Newcastle-under-Lyme in Staffordshire, a region where Reform threatens to swamp Labour unless the governing party can mount a fightback.MPs Liam Conlon (left) and Adam Jogee with former deputy prime minister Angela Rayner. Photograph: Mark Paul Jogee posed for a selfie with Rayner. So did Liam Conlon, the MP for Beckenham and Penge in south London and the son of Sue Gray, who was Starmer’s first Downing Street chief of staff until he sacked her after a power tussle with Irish man Morgan McSweeney.Other Irish-linked senior Labour figures streamed into the Stubshaw car park. Roy Kennedy, Labour’s chief whip in the House of Lords and a respected backroom operator, arrived to canvass with Fiona Twycross, a minister in the UK’s culture department and a fellow Labour peer.Kennedy had also been up to Ashton-in-Makerfield to canvass the previous weekend. “We were getting a much better reception in the more middle-class areas than the staunchly working-class ones,” he said.Reform UK Leader Nigel Farage with Rob Kenyon, the party's candidate contesting the Makerfield byelection. Photograph: Ryan Jenkinson/Getty Images The threat to Burnham posed by Nigel Farage’s insurgent right-wing party Reform and its candidate, local plumber Rob Kenyon, had not disappeared completely, then.Twycross said she believed Kenyon had damaged his standing with women voters and that this would help Burnham. During the campaign, Kenyon was confronted with old, clearly sexist tweets that he said he would never write now.Reform have since kept their man mostly away from the media. Farage’s party is also losing support on its right flank to Restore Britain, an even more right-wing party that has run a local businesswoman in Makerfield, Rebecca Shepherd.“With some voters, Kenyon might get away with some sexist stuff,” said Twycross. “But the comments he made about abortion will damage him most with women.”[ Downing Street contender Andy Burnham would pursue closer British-Irish relationsOpens in new window ]Kenyon has described abortion as a “cowardly act of murder”. That might sit well with some of Reform’s core base, but not with wavering middle-ground voters in this region which until recently was staunch Old Labour, albeit an area that heavily backed Brexit.Women are at the heart of Burnham’s would-be power machine.His campaign is being run by a triumvirate of influential, northern, woman Labour MPs. Most prominent is Sheffield Heeley’s Louise Haigh, whom Starmer’s team squeezed out as transport secretary. Haigh, with her closeness to Burnham, is now easily as powerful as any of her former cabinet colleagues. Her sweet-natured, tan-coloured greyhound cross, Milo, also seems to have emerged as the official dog of the Burnham campaign.Another important player is Anneliese Midgley from Knowles, who is emerging as a key backroom figure and seen as important in bridging the party’s relationship with the unions. The third member of the triumvirate is fresh-faced former prison officer, Sally Jameson of Doncaster Central – another of the 2024 intake whose star is rising.Andy Burnham at Wigan St Jude's rugby club. Photograph: Mark Paul While the Stubshaw crowd headed out to canvass, Haigh, Midgely and Jameson were among those who convened 15 minutes across town at the Wigan St Jude’s rugby league club, where Burnham gave a speech to a raucous gathering of trade unionists.He was introduced by Joanne Thomas, general secretary of USDAW (the Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers), while at least two other union general secretaries were in the room. Burnham joked that having an audience of big union leaders made him “the most powerful person in the country” – that might be more than banter by the end of the summer, with his current trajectory.[ Nigel Farage vows to ban foreign nationals from social housingOpens in new window ]Disappointed trade union members who had arrived on buses from all over the country to hear Burnham speak queued outside in vain to get into the private event – the room was way over-full. The Irish Times was secreted in by a friendly helper through a fire exit.The crowd chanted Burnham’s first name over and over; he has undeniable star power, which could be enough to see him over the line in Makerfield in a tight contest. That, and the fact that Restore is splitting Reform’s vote.“People believe in your vision,” Thomas told Burnham. “You are rewriting the script. This is not just about Makerfield. This is about taking the fight to Reform.”Burnham said he believed he could “do anything with support like this”. Someone roared “long live the king!” as he stood beaming at the top of the room.The sense of an imminent changing of the guard at the top of Labour was by now palpable. The Irish Times spotted in the room several key advisers to serving Labour cabinet members – a sure sign of the shifting of power.Burnham spoke about “taking back control” of Britain’s failing water companies. He promised “guaranteed, quality, 45-day work placements” for every young Briton between the age of 16 and 18. He spoke of “good union jobs”. He promised “hope”.The previous evening at a private dinner, some of Burnham’s closest political allies had also expressed satisfaction at a headline in the British paper The Times, saying he would cut the welfare bill to fund defence, closing off one of his rivals’ key attack lines.[ Mark Paul in Ashton-in-Makerfield: Labour hopes Farage will lose some flock to SheppardOpens in new window ]But if Burnham does become prime minister, he will have many policy gaps to bridge.The Greater Manchester mayor’s campaign might seem to be flying high as it nears a denouement. But a few hours on the canvassing trail in Winstanley, a working-class area populated by many skilled trades people living in tidy houses, showed that maybe victory is not in the bag yet for Burnham after all.The Irish Times accompanied one party member as he knocked on the doors of more than a dozen undecided voters identified by Labour’s high-tech canvassing apps – the party even buys their credit card data from Experian to build a picture of their lives.Of the dozen or so doors knocked, not a single one confirmed that they would vote for Burnham. Most refused to even come to the door.For Burnham, the vibes might be good. The polls look promising, too – a few weeks back Labour was in the low 20s here, but Burnham is in the mid-to-high 40s. But he still needs to get enough people out to vote for him on Thursday.Starmer can only watch as he awaits his fate.