00:12I'm Dan Hagar from The Independent and I'm at Ashton Town Football Club in the
00:16Makerfield constituency just outside Wigan in the northwest of England where
00:20Andy Burnham has just addressed the media. These are the calls that we've got
00:24to hear and this is the change that we've got to bring and I say it again it
00:29is our last chance to change but we're going to take it aren't we we are going
00:33to take that opportunity and we are going to lay out a new path for Britain.
00:39Surrounded by supporters after his resounding win in the Makerfield
00:42by-election overnight Mr Burnham won about 54.8% of the popular vote
00:46beating Reform's Robert Kenyon who came second. Burnham had around 9,000 more
00:50votes than Mr Kenyon in what people were expected to be a closer race than that
00:54in this constituency. Now the by-election has been seen as sort of a seismic one
00:58for many reasons. Mr Burnham is not only really a running to be MP for
01:03Makerfield but as many expect him now to launch a challenge to Sir Keir Starmer
01:06for the Labour leadership which he would be able to do now that he has returned to Parliament.
01:10It's important that we hold together for that but if there is a contest just to be
01:14clear with you then yes I will I will stand and I've said repeatedly I'm not going to
01:19walk away from that. Mr Burnham has of course spent the last nine years as a Metro
01:23Mayor for Greater Manchester covering this area and he's a very popular figure here.
01:27People saw it as a risk when he stepped down from his mayor role to run for MP
01:31but when I've come up here in the campaign to the constituency there's a lot of
01:35popularity for him that's sort of separate from the Labour Party.
01:39Yeah I voted for Labour and I'm really pleased and I'm hoping that they'll do great things
01:45and I think Andy is the right move going forward.
01:49Andy Burnham would have a favour all along.
01:52He's been in here, there's no words and graces about him, he's down to earth, he's a people person, I
01:57think he'll do good for the area.
01:59Obviously this came on the back, this by-election has come on the back of quite bruising local
02:04election results for Labour in May including in Wigan Borough Council which they'll make
02:09feel constituency falls into where it lost over 20 seats and reform picked up a lot so going into
02:15this by-election there's a lot of expectation that reform would perform well and Mr Burnham had his work
02:20out but he's actually I'd say over exceeded most people's expectations with what is now a thumping win
02:28and he now has a considerable majority to return to Parliament with.
02:31In his address to supporters there, there were lots of cheers surrounded by lots of party members
02:37and activists and supporters and plenty of media here to watch. Mr Burnham sort of laid out a vision
02:41for a new Labour Party which has been at the heart of his campaign, one which he describes as being
02:47built around what he calls Manchesterism which is the politics that have driven his running of
02:51Greater Manchester as a city region since 2017. So he's sort of talking about things like increased
02:56public ownership, it's sort of a brand of policy used to call aspirational socialism or business
03:00friendly socialism where there's a sort of move to the left economically but still he believes allowing
03:05for economic growth. Mr Burnham took aim at things like trickle-down economics which he believes has
03:10not ever really trickled down to places like this in the northwest of England and sort of talks about
03:14rewiring the country and in his speech that we've just seen the sort of biggest cheers and the
03:20largest support came from putting Makerfield at the centre of his brand of politics. Now he didn't
03:24take any questions from the media and he's not spoken explicitly about taking on Sir Keir Starmer
03:29but we expect, I think everyone expects that to happen soon but I think what we know from this,
03:35what we can take from this is that Mr Burnham has proven he is Labour's best chance of beating
03:41reform and the threat of reform to the Labour vote in areas like this. There was talk running
03:46up to the by-election that if Mr Burnham couldn't beat reform and what in this sort of seat like
03:53this which has long been a Labour heartland, the Labour safe seat but sort of wasn't really anymore
03:57because of the rise of reform, if Burnham can't beat them here who could but Burnham has proven he
04:02can beat them here and the challenge for him now is to convince the Labour membership that he's the man
04:07that can beat reform in other parts of the country but also now I think sell a vision
04:12of a new type of Labour party to the nation.
04:21Do you want your local MP to be the Prime Minister?
04:24Yeah I certainly would, he can only do good for the Ashton area, it's brilliant you know,
04:29Prime Minister coming from Ashton to make a deal, it's great.
04:32When I've been listening to Andy and the things he spoke about I just think that it'd be
04:35really good for the country really so I do hope that he gets the chance to be Prime Minister.
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