LONDON — Britain moved decisively toward a new leadership contest Friday after a key rival to embattled Prime Minister Keir Starmer won a resounding special-election victory.
Andy Burnham, who was until today the mayor of Greater Manchester, secured a seat in Parliament with a remarkable win over far-right Reform UK in the small northwest England area of Makerfield.
Burnham has openly discussed mounting an effort to replace Starmer as leader of the ruling center-left Labour Party, and thus prime minister. The special election result clears the path for him to now bring a challenge that he has every chance of winning.
Starmer is historically unpopular in Britain after a series of scandals and policy missteps, with critics accusing him of lacking a political vision for remedying the country’s ailing post-Brexit economy.
He vowed Friday to fight any contest, but every indicator suggests it will be tough for him to resist Burnham. If the northerner succeeds, he would be the 7th prime minister in a decade for this politically turbulent, economically stagnant country.
While Burnham did not formalize his challenge, he made little secret of his nationwide ambitions.
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“This now is the change moment,” he said during a victory speech. “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.”
He did not name Starmer, the leader of his own party, but did not hide his criticism of the current government. “Everybody knows that politics isn’t working. Everyone can feel that the country isn’t where it should be,” he said. “Tonight could, just could, be the turning point.”
Mutinous Labour MPs have been openly calling for a change of leader for months, fearful that Starmer would lead the party to a defeat in the next election and usher in the hard-right Reform UK, led by Donald Trump ally Nigel Farage.
Burnham warned that a win for the fiercely anti-immigration Reform would see Britain “go down a path towards greater darkness and division, and end up somewhere like the United States of America, where people don’t talk to each other in the street if they vote different ways, or in their workplace,” he said.
“We will not let that happen here.”
In the event, the results of the special election, called a “by-election” in Britain showed Burnham had defeated his Reform opponent, Robert Kenyon, by a thumping 24,927 votes to 15,696. He won 54.8% of the votes in a crowded field of candidates, a resounding result at a time when his party and leader are deeply unpopular nationwide.
Farage said he was “disappointed” with the result. Reform had been “slightly hoisted with our own petard” because Burnham had aped its message of needing to replace Starmer, he said in a video message Friday.
“We are the challenge party to the left in this country and I would urge you to think again,” he added.
Reform’s campaign faced setbacks over unearthed social media posts from Kenyon, a former plumber who previously described himself online as a “sexist” and said some women had abortions for “vanity purposes.”
Despite the potentially historical nature of the moment, it also included a touch of absurd theater.
As the results were announced, Burnham was flanked by an independent candidate dressed in a fox costume and another contender known as Count Binface. This “independent space warrior” (real name Jonathan David Harvey) regularly stands in U.K. elections, he says, to promote voter participation.
The win flipped the nationwide trend of Labour’s fortunes tanking alongside a surge for Reform — a reflection of Burnham’s personal popularity as Manchester mayor.
Denying that Makerfield was just a “stepping stone” to the prime minister’s residence at No. 10 Downing St., he said his win would be his “touchstone” to ensure places like this constituency were no longer forgotten by Westminster.
“A Makerfield test at the heart of British politics will make sure that the places Westminster has neglected will now get fairness,” he said.
British by-elections are often sleepy affairs with results that are foregone conclusions, but the battle in Makerfield has been closely watched because of its national significance and the unusual circumstances by which it came about. Its Labour MP, Josh Simons, resigned with the deliberate intention of allowing Burnham to win the seat, enter Parliament and seek the leadership.
The area, a working-class and largely white part of Greater Manchester, is a top target for Farage’s party, but Burnham sought to turn back the tide, relying on his unique appeal as the region’s popular mayor.
To become leader, Burnham now needs to issue an official leadership challenge to Starmer, which requires the support of 81 fellow Labour lawmakers. Some of Burnham’s allies have urged Starmer to step aside and prevent a messy, protected and internecine battle when Britain’s woes should be the priority.
“I hope that he would consider an orderly and managed transition,” one Burnham supporter, the former transport secretary Louise Haigh, told the BBC on Friday. “I think dragging any process out for any length of time would be difficult for the Labour party, but more crucially for the government.”
She said Burnham would speak to Starmer “in the coming days.”
The prime minister has vowed to defend his position, however.
In a brief statement early Friday Starmer congratulated Burnham, his Labour Party colleague, in a message on social media. He later told reporters that if there was a contest “I will stand, and I’ve said repeatedly I’m not going to walk away from that.”
But his position looks fragile: 110 of his own colleagues have already signed a letter calling for him to step down. Also running against him would be Wes Streeting, who resigned as health secretary last month to plan his own leadership challenge.
“Burnham’s win, while expected, will be greeted by his newfound colleagues at Westminster with a sigh of relief but also a degree of trepidation,” said Tim Bale, a politics professor at Queen Mary University of London.
“So far, he’s been something of a fantasy leader, a screen onto which supporters can project their pet theories as to how the government can turn things around,” Bale said. “Now, presuming he takes over from Starmer, that fantasy will collide with reality — and reality always wins.”
Claire Ainsley, Starmer’s former policy guru, credited Burnham with running a “positive campaign focused on hyperlocal issues that matter to people in the constituency of Makerfield, like waste and local services.”
Ainsley, who is now a director at the Progressive Policy Institute, a Washington think tank, added that it was “the kind of campaign that is winning for center-left candidates in other countries, which shows local people their candidate will put them and their area above partisan politics.”
