Andy Burnham’s victory in the Makerfield by-election is a big blow for Reform UK and its leader Nigel Farage. Farage and co. will offer up plenty of reasons for defeat in the coming hours and days. We should take these with a pinch of salt.
Reform’s spinmeisters will be quick to suggest that it is all down to the Burnham effect. Gawain Towler, a long-time ally of Farage, admitted as much before the vote. He said that the Greater Manchester mayor ‘does change the weather’, adding that it would be a ‘very, very hard task’ beating him. Rupert Lowe’s Restore Britain party, meanwhile, will be blamed for denting Reform’s chances of victory by splitting the vote on the right.
Excuses, excuses and more excuses. A Reform win in Makerfield would rightly have been seen as a political earthquake. Losing there is equally dramatic – and not in a good way.
The spotlight will – and must – also turn on Farage himself
Why? Because ultimately politics is about winning and the momentum that comes with victory. Reform appears to be losing political momentum, and doing so at a critical time. Farage can try to sugarcoat the Makerfield result any way he likes but there can be no disguising the fact that he and his party simply failed to get over the line in what was a very winnable constituency. In the most recent local elections, every one of the individual council wards in Makerfield went to Reform. And yet Reform UK’s Robert Kenyon lost to Burnham by more than 9,000 votes. This result is as much a Reform failure as a Labour victory.
