00:00The Makerfield by-election is not just another Westminster contest.
00:05It's the route Andy Burnham needs if he wants to return to Parliament
00:09and possibly position himself for something much bigger.
00:12But the seat in Greater Manchester is no easy comeback.
00:17Reform UK is targeting it heavily
00:19and the result could say a lot about whether Labour can still hold places it once saw as safe.
00:26Burnham has been in the party for donkey's years
00:28and there is a joke about Burnham going into a bar and being addressed.
00:34The joke is that a Blairite, a Brownite, a Corbynite walks into a bar
00:41and which the barman says, what would you like to drink, Mr Burnham?
00:46And of course within that joke tells you that he's been around a long time
00:50and indeed, most importantly, this would not be his first run at the leadership election.
00:55He attempted to sort of do it when, of course, they got rid of Brown
01:02and of course he was replaced by Miniband.
01:04Burnham came fourth, you know, that's way back in sort of the middle of the last decade.
01:08Then, of course, he ran against Corbyn and came as a pretty poor second.
01:12So, of course, and then, dare I say, it left Parliament in 2017.
01:17So, OK, it's almost nine years ago.
01:19Labour has selected Andy Burnham as its candidate with polling day expected on the 18th of June.
01:26He's still mayor of Greater Manchester, but winning Makerfield would take him back
01:31to the House of Commons for the first time since 2017.
01:35Reform UK has chosen Robert Kenyon, who came second in the seat in the last general election.
01:41The party says it will throw everything at the contest
01:44and recent local results suggest it's a serious threat in the area.
01:50Labour remains the bookmaker's favourite, but not by enough for this to look comfortable.
01:55If Burnham loses, it would damage his route back to Westminster.
01:59We can talk of a future leadership challenge
02:02and hand reform a major symbolic victory in Labour's traditional heartlands.
02:08He has the benefit of being very popular in the sort of the North West,
02:12particularly as, of course, he's the sort of the mayor of Manchester
02:14and has been, as I say, made a great success of that.
02:17So, of course, he's not tainted by having been in the Westminster bubble for so long.
02:21But, of course, his roots are always there.
02:23And, of course, the view has always been, despite his protestations over the years,
02:26that he's very happy in what he did and was going to continue as mayor of Manchester,
02:30that one day he would eventually come.
02:32Now, of course, the circumstances are good in many ways.
02:36And, of course, the Labour Party members are crying out for someone who will sort of rescue them
02:41from sort of getting one hell of a kicking, which, of course, the opinion polls suggest will happen
02:44at the next election, or next general election, which, of course, is not due for another three years.
02:49So there's plenty of time for the fortunes to turn around.
02:51But Starman is not the man that's regarded to do that.
02:55But, of course, the difficulty that Burnham has, of course, he's not a member of Parliament.
02:59And, of course, he'll have to become an MP before he can even run.
03:03So it's quite complicated.
03:05But, dare I say, I think that whatever may happen,
03:09Keir Starmer's days are always going to be numbered.
03:10That's the sort of the fate of any politician.
03:14But I've always felt that Starmer will not be the man that will sort of lead Labour into the next
03:18election.
03:19But, of course, who may be, we shall sort of see.
03:21And the next month or so will sort of largely determine what may happen.
03:25And the biggest question in all of this is, can Burnham win that by-election?
03:32Well, again, this is the real difficulty that perhaps, had it been a couple of years ago,
03:39maybe it would have been a resounding yes.
03:42But, of course, what has happened?
03:44And, of course, we come back to Nigel Farage, you know, sort of another character.
03:48If this was sort of a pantomime, he would be the baddie.
03:53Certainly as far as sort of Labour Party members are concerned,
03:55maybe even the Conservative Party members.
03:57And he's been around for a long time, led the sort of the referendum,
04:01well, formed the UK Independence Party, which led to the referendum,
04:04which took us out of the EU and the anniversary or the 10th anniversary, which is next month.
04:09And why do I mention him in particular?
04:11Well, of course, he's been sort of the nearly man in many ways.
04:15But, you know, his main success is getting the referendum,
04:20which I think has been the most central sort of moment in British politics,
04:23probably since the Second World War, and has had profound cultural, social,
04:27and most particularly economic consequences.
04:30If you look at the constituency that Andy Burnham is going to run in,
04:33Makefell, which, of course, has very sort of kindly sort of led to him,
04:37you know, also passed over to him by sort of somebody who, you know, Josh Simons.
04:42It was 65% to leave, such is the state of politics.
04:47And, of course, everything is looked at through the sort of prism of reform
04:50and what they are going to do and how they're going to sort of change this country.
04:54For Sir Keir Starmer, Makefell is awkward either way.
04:58A Burnham win would bring a powerful rival back into Parliament.
05:02A Burnham defeat would raise a different problem.
05:05If Labour cannot rely on seats like this,
05:07the party's challenge from reform may be far deeper than it currently looks.
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