Just before polling day, last week’s Makerfield byelection was touted as one of the most charged political events of recent years. Given Labour’s many failings and grim poll ratings, could Reform UK come out on top, with a convincing win that would propel leader Nigel Farage towards Downing Street?
The result was telling. Labour’s Andy Burnham won a larger-than-expected majority and is now set to take over as prime minister, perhaps as soon as next month. But it makes sense to take a more in-depth look at what happened, not just for Farage and Burnham and their respective parties, but also for the Liberal Democrats and especially the revitalised Green Party under Zack Polanski.
Although there were already indications that Labour had pulled ahead on polling day itself, the extent of the victory was a surprise to many. Burnham won 55% of the vote share to Reform candidate Rob Kenyon’s 35%.
The Labour machine put thousands of supporters into door-to-door canvassing in the final few days, using Burnham’s evident popularity to good effect, and made much of what it saw as weaknesses in Reform’s candidate. Those were compounded by problems that Farage faced with the even more right-wing Restore Britain upstart party, led by former Reform MP Rupert Lowe.
In the event, even the combined voting figures of Reform and Restore fell well short of Burnham’s vote. This was no doubt helped by large-scale tactical voting against Reform by Green and Lib Dem voters, with the two parties winning just 0.7% and 0.4% of the vote, respectively, despite having had impressive results in other recent elections.
Looking forward, the volatility seen in Makerfield indicates considerable uncertainty ahead of the next UK general election, which is due to take place in 2029.
Two points are more immediately relevant in terms of forecasting what the next three years might look like. One is that the Greens’ Polanski has some progressive economic policies in his pocket that take him close to one of the rare examples of radical politics coming to the fore in Britain in recent decades.
The other prominent recent example was Labour’s 2017 election manifesto, which directly challenged neoliberalism and made explicit its support for “the many, not the few”. It was a thoroughly progressive approach that proved unexpectedly popular and led to then-prime minister Theresa May being deprived of the substantial majority she expected upon calling a snap-election.
The shock of then Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn coming so close to Downing Street was enough to unleash a storm of right-wing media scares against him personally and his brand of socialism in general.
This is relevant as in the past few months we have seen the start of a similar campaign, led by tabloids, this time against Polsanski and the Greens. “Eco nuts” is among the milder descriptors, with the implication being that the Greens are entirely unsuited to the task of running a modern state.
First Corbyn and now Polanski, it’s clear the UK’s elite system is always ready to intervene against any political movement that might challenge the status quo.
The other point concerns problems facing Reform. Burnham is currently far more politically popular than Farage, with polls putting him 20% ahead on the question of who is a better prime minister-to-be. That lead may prove temporary, but the bigger issue is of Reform presenting itself as an anti-elite movement protecting the underdog, with Farage doing his chap-in-the-pub/man-of-the-people act.
This stance is becoming problematic, at odds as it is with the reality of Reform’s support from the elite. Since 2019, the party and has received £45m from supporters, of which £32m came from just four wealthy individuals.
Farage has also made more than £1m from jobs he has been doing while an MP, making him the highest-paid MP. Meanwhile, other senior figures in the party, such as deputy leader Richard Tice and former chair Zia Yusuf, are reported to be multi-millionaires.
Despite this, Farage and Reform still score well among the disenchanted – although there is plenty of time for that to change.
Burnham must therefore remake Labour as a more progressive party, clearly “supporting the many, not the few”, so to speak, if he is to succeed. The appointment of top lobbyist James Purnell as his chief of staff is therefore surprising many on the left, with Polanski telling openDemocracy that it was reminiscent of “a Blair and Starmer tribute act”.
In the current state of British politics, any party that seriously challenges the status quo, whether Labour, Green, the Lib Dems or the currently maligned Your Party, will have a difficult job breaking through.
There is, though, one theme where it might be done: money laundering.
As journalist and writer John Lanchester puts it, “something not fully understood is going on at a massive scale right under the noses of governments”. That “something” includes endemic money laundering, which is costing the country billions a year. Plenty of detail can be found in Oliver Bullough’s book, Everybody Loves our Dollars: How Money Laundering Won.
It is an issue ripe for a would-be progressive government’s attention, well-nigh certain to be popular with a disillusioned electorate and, most significantly, difficult for an elite system to counter. For a progressive political party, it would be a very good use of time and energy, especially in the run-up to a general election.
