Andy Burnham trounced Reform and nearly doubled Labour’s majority in the Makerfield by-election, garnering a 54.8% vote share that dwarfed all of his opponents combinedAndy Burnham said Labour needed to grasp the chance to turn things around(Image: Victoria Jones/Shutterstock)Andy Burnham said his emphatic by-election victory could be a “turning point” for the country as voters chose Labour over Nigel Farage’s politics of division.Mr Burnham trounced Reform and nearly doubled Labour’s majority in Makerfield, garnering a 54.8% share that dwarfed all of his opponents combined. In his victory speech, he said: “Everyone knows that politics isn’t working. Everyone can feel that the country isn’t where it should be. Tonight could just be a turning point.”Mr Farage failed to show his face at the count in Wigan after his candidate Robert Kenyon was pushed into a distant second place. Reform had made sweeping gains in the area at May’s local elections but voters snubbed Mr Kenyon, who was heavily criticised for historic comments about women during the campaign.The seismic result has triggered a reckoning for Keir Starmer, as Mr Burnham prepares to travel to Westminster on Monday with his sights set on Downing Street. The Prime Minister publicly vowed to fight a leadership challenge but he faces a battle over the next 48 hours to persuade his party to stick with him.Keir Starmer has said he will fight a leadership challenge(Image: Peter Macdiarmid/Pool The Times)In calls with top ministers, Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander urged the PM to step aside and allow an orderly transition of power. An aide said they spoke as part of wider cabinet calls but declined to comment on a private conversation. Energy Security Secretary Ed Miliband and Shabana Mahmood, the Home Secretary, were said to have delivered a similar message after Labour’s local elections mauling last month.Labour grandee Harriet Harman invoked Boris Johnson’s resignation speech, saying the “herd is moving, they are stampeding” away from Mr Starmer, and said Mr Burnham would be PM. Former Cabinet Minister Alan Johnson also delivered a devastating verdict, saying he would tell the PM: “It’s over, Keir.”He told LBC: “He will forever be in the history books as the man who turned us around, Labour, from the second worst result in our history to the second best result in our history in one five-year period.” He added: “He is a fighter. But this is just stark reality. That result was stark reality. And we’ve got a chance now to do things that, for whatever reason, Keir was unable to do.”At a rally at Ashton Town FC on Friday, Mr Burnham all but fired the starting gun on a leadership challenge, saying he hoped to “lay out a new path for Britain”. He said: “It is our last chance to change, but we’re going to take it, aren’t we? We are going to take that opportunity and we are going to lay out a new path for Britain.”He added: “We’ve been on a path for 40 years that simply hasn’t worked for people and places in this part of the world, and this now is the change moment. We have an opportunity to turn the tide, to make the country feel like it’s working again, to make people see that politics can make a positive difference, to make people feel hope again.”Robert Kenyon, left, lost to Andy Burnham in Makerfield, while Nigel Farage failed to turn up to the count(Image: Manchester Evening News)Labour is locked in a fraught standoff as Mr Burnham’s allies pushed for the PM to agree to a timetable to go, to avoid a bitter leadership contest. His camp is understood to believe Mr Starmer should hand over the keys to No10 in September – and should declare his intentions now to avoid jeopardising a critical by-election to replace Mr Burnham as Greater Manchester Mayor next month.But Mr Starmer dug in, and has started sounding out donors and prepping his team. He is understood to have amassed a war-chest to fund his campaign, with pledges running into six figures.“I don’t think it’s a good thing for the country to plunge us into chaos,” he said. “But if there is a contest, I will run, I will stand. I have said repeatedly I am not going to walk away from that.”He also used a call with party staff to urge colleagues to “pull together” and avoid “plunging our party and our country into chaos by turning on each other”.The PM and Mr Burnham are expected to speak in the coming days. A Starmer loyalist said “Andy doesn’t want this to play out in the public. Andy and Keir both care about the party. I want them to work together. The moment you change leader, everyone will say: ‘Time for a general election.’ The noise will be relentless.”In a sign of the animosity between the different camps, a No10 source said: “If this morning is anything to go by, it doesn’t seem like Andy Burnham has an abundance of fresh ideas.” They added: “It’s Keir’s conference speech delivered in a polo shirt.”Wes Streeting has said he wants to fight a leadership contest but is not expected to break cover this weekend(Image: Getty Images)But supporters of Mr Burnham believe Mr Starmer has run out of road. One minister told the Mirror: “Once the toothpaste is out the tube, there’s no putting it back.”Former Transport Secretary Louise Haigh, one of the architects of Burnham’s campaign, said: “I hope that he will consider an orderly and managed transition. We have said that the party is in an existential crisis and things cannot continue, and it was quite clear after the local elections, unfortunately, that he considered that business as usual would suffice.”She said “all the agency is in Keir Starmer’s hands” and that she hoped he did that in “a dignified way”.Ex-Health Secretary Wes Streeting has said he wants to enter a leadership contest but is expected to keep his powder dry over the weekend. A ally said: “There is a mood to conclude quickly and get back to Governing. But the ability to do so as a united party is predicated on the PM doing the right thing. In that sense, he can still shape his legacy.”Asked if she thinks Andy Burnham and Wes Streeting could do a deal, Jess Phillips, a Streeting ally who resigned as a Home Office minister last month, said: “I very much hope that, like I said, that they are talking to each other and coming to the conclusion that it is the best… All I want both of them to ask each other and themselves and Keir Starmer, the only question that matters, [which] is what do I do now in the next few days and weeks and months that means that the Labour Party can continue to progress, to improve the country and then beat Reform at the next election. Literally nothing else matters.”Elsewhere, the Tories won Aberdeen South from the SNP, while the Scottish nationalists held on in Arbroath and Broughty Ferry, in two contests triggered by the sitting MPs winning seats at Holyrood.
