Makerfield By-Election: Should Restore Stand?

Hinzugefügt: 2026-05-19

[00:00:00]Yesterday, Rupert Lo announced that Restore Britain will be standing a candidate in the Makerfield bi-election.

[00:00:06]And at first sight, you may be hearing that and thinking, "So what? A political party putting forwards a candidate in an election? That's hardly news, is it?"

[00:00:14]Uh, well, it is news actually because this bi-election is likely to determine the next prime minister. And as a result of that, a few people, many people you could say, are quite upset with Restore for making this decision. Now, that's what I'm going to talk about in this video. I think from a restored Britain perspective, there is a positive case to be made here and there is a negative case to be made. And I'm going to look at both of them. I'm just going to share my thoughts. I'm not going to belittle people who are concerned by this. Uh, and yeah, that's it. So, let's just get into it. Okay, first let's just try and understand this bi-election and how we actually got here in the first place.

[00:00:51]Karma, the prime minister, for those who aren't aware, is clearly under a lot of pressure. In fact, 90 of his own MPs have come out publicly to say that he should stand down. The problem that the Labour party has is that unlike the Tories, they don't have a system whereby uh MPs can come out and say this leader should go and then they have a leadership contest. It's different in the Labour party. This is as I understand it. Instead, one specific contender needs to win enough support from other Labor MPs to force a leadership challenge. Now, who could that be within the Labour Party? Well, a lot of people were looking at Wes Streeting, and he does have some support, but apparently not enough MPs are willing to back Wes Streeting to have that head-to-head challenge against Karma.

[00:01:40]So, who else? Well, apparently Andy Bernham. Of course, Bernham has a bit of a problem because even if enough other Labour MPs support him in a bid to challenge Gear Stalmer, he can't do it.

[00:01:54]He's not an MP. He's the mayor of Manchester. So, how do we get around this problem? Well, they found a solution. Labour MP Josh Simons has deliberately resigned as an MP in Makerfield in order to trigger a bi-election and allow Andy Bernham to contest it, hopefully winning his seat and therefore being able to rival Star.

[00:02:18]And as much as it might sound nice to get rid of Kier Dharma, we have to be very frank about who Andy Burnham is. Uh he is clearly to the left of Kier Starma, particularly on issues like immigration. So as much as we all don't like Stara, I think we're all going to like Andy Burnham a heck of a lot less.

[00:02:36]At this point, it's worth taking a look at the demographics of Makerfield because I think we can learn a lot about how different sides of the political spectrum might fare here. And it's actually quite interesting. According to the last census, 97% of people who live there are white. 68% identify as Christian. Uh, and the area voted for Brexit, 65%.

[00:02:59]So, this isn't some hyperliberal inner city diverse multicultural area. Far from it. And yes, they have voted for Labor in the last three general elections, but Labour have become increasingly unpopular basically since they got into power. So, the right has a chance here. And and I think people were assuming that this would just be a straight shoot between reform and labor.

[00:03:23]The Tories, you know, if they couldn't win in 2019, uh, with Boris Johnson or whatever, then how are they going to win now? They're even less popular. Uh, the Greens just I don't think they've got much of a chance there. So, reform versus Labor, right?

[00:03:40]Until, of course, Restore Britain announced that they were fielding a candidate. And that is the hand grenade that was thrown into the online political sphere and effectively exploded everything.

[00:03:52]Oh boy. So I want to lay out the positive and negative case for standing in this election from a restore Britain perspective. And I'll start with the positive case and then we'll move on to the negative one. Uh, in the positive sense, if Restore were to win this seat or come second, and some people will think I'm crazy for even saying that, uh, but if that were to happen, it would completely turbocharge the party, right?

[00:04:17]Uh, they would have instant notoriety.

[00:04:19]They'd have to be covered by all of the news channels. It would be the biggest news story for several days, and that's all that they would be talking about.

[00:04:26]Restore Britain would have a light shining on them uh for the first time in the mainstream media, which obviously is fantastic. At the same time, the establishment would be completely terrified by this. I think the establishment has come to accept that reform are effectively slightly more right-wing Tories, basically Tory 2.0.

[00:04:47]And reform won that accolade by bringing a bunch of Tories into the party as well as loads of candidates of foreign heritage. uh and so the establishment has kind of got its head around reform but restore is very different. They are clearly in some sense a nivist party.

[00:05:04]They are looking to prioritize and make life better for the native British people. Uh and that is a petrifying idea to the Westminster elite. So there is absolutely an upside. Anyone who tells you that there isn't an upside potentially to standing in this election for Restore Britain, uh, they're lying because there is.

[00:05:26]But there's also a potential downside.

[00:05:28]The negative case then, and there's two ways that this could go quite badly for Restore Britain. The first of these is that they get completely crushed. Uh, they get, you know, destroyed kind of in the same way that Advance UK did in the Gorton and Denton bi-election. Advance had a pretty good local candidate in that election and I think they got like a hundred votes or something completely decimated and at that point a lot of people said right okay we can't win with Advance UK even when we've got a good local candidate who has his own social media presence etc etc so a lot of people moved from Advance to Restore Britain after that election and so if Restore get completely crushed here there is the risk that a lot of people say, "Well, okay, we can't win with restore, so we may as well just go back to voting reform."

[00:06:20]That's one risk. The other risk is that they don't get crushed. Uh, but they also do come in third place. And what they effectively managed to achieve is allowing Andy Burnham back into parliament. So, say reform get 10,000 votes, restore get 2,000, and Andy Burnham for Labor gets 11,000. Uh if that happens then reform will obviously start beating uh restore Britain voters with the stick of vote splitting and they'll say look you voted for restore and now you've let Andy Burnham into parliament and also if Andy Burnham then becomes the prime minister every time he introduces a policy which is leftwing and the rightwing doesn't like it Nigel Farage and reform will be going to great lengths to tell everyone well this is Restore Britain's fault this is Rbert Lowe's fault for standing in that election. We would have won if they didn't stand. And you may see that as petty and you may see that as unfair, but ultimately a lot of voters, right-wing voters may be put off by that. So that's the potential downside.

[00:07:23]That's the risk to standing in this election. Okay, let me just circle back around and reinject some positivity in Great Yamoth. Uh Restore Britain and Rupert Low didn't just win, okay? They completely decimated and crushed their opposition. In fact, if you cut in half the votes that every Restore Britain or Great Yarmouth First candidate got, they would still win. So, more than double their competition in every single seat.

[00:07:52]And how did they do that? Well, they did that by increasing the voter turnout.

[00:07:58]people who traditionally wouldn't vote, so non voters actually bother to register and go out and vote for Restore because they believe in it. Now, of course, great Yarmouth is kind of Robert Low territory. That's where he's an MP.

[00:08:12]Uh so, he has a stronger presence there.

[00:08:14]But the point is, there are a lot of people in this country who have completely given up on politics and now they see something actually worth going out and voting for. And so, isn't it right that we give the people of Makerfield that opportunity to re-engage with politics? Isn't that a good thing?

[00:08:33]Uh, and actually, if they're successful in doing this, you could even have a situation where it's like, uh, reform come first, restore come second, or vice versa. Now, that as well might sound completely insane to some people, but look, I don't think Labor is particularly popular at the moment. Uh, and I don't think that Andy Burham is this mythical powerhouse figure in Manchester either. Not only that, I think the local people in Makerfield might actually feel kind of agrieved that the MP they voted for just over a year ago has decided to resign so that his party can put in a new prime minister uh that nobody ever consented to being prime minister in the first place. Right? They might feel like, well, you're kind of taking advantage of here. uh you obviously aren't here to represent uh the people of Makerfield in the best possible way and so they might decide to punish Labor for that decision. The very last thing I want to say is this and it's kind of a message to the Restore Britain supporters who feel uneasy about this decision. Uh I get it and like I said I've laid out the negative case. I'm not going to belittle you. Uh I think those are realistic possibilities. However, at this point the decision has been made. uh and this is the kind of thing we encounter in the military all the time. The commander issues his intent in in this analogy.

[00:09:52]Rupert Low would obviously be the commander and then the subordinates have to figure out a plan to achieve that intent. What the subordinates don't do is just sit there and grumble and gripe and say, well, you know, why are we going left flanking when we should be going right flanking? And actually, I fancy a full frontal assault today um because, you know, I'm having a bad day and whatever. Right? You don't just grumble and gripe. You can kind of do that privately, okay? But plastering it all over social media is not helpful.

[00:10:21]Uh, in fact, it's probably just counterproductive. And so, if you really want to avoid those negative outcomes, there's only a handful of things that you can do at this point. One of which is to get out there and canvas, is to actually get involved. Take ownership.

[00:10:36]There's another military concept for you, extreme ownership. take ownership of this situation and try to figure out how we can make this work. How can we fight for a restored Britain victory in that seat? That's all you can do. You can't change that decision. That's beyond your control. So, stop worrying about it. Stop panicking about it. And now do the things that are in your control, which I would say, you know, is canvasing, leafleting, being positive on social media, etc., etc. That's it. That's all you can do.

[00:11:06]Right. Sorry, I'm a little bit distracted because I've got these weird flies just flying around me and they're kind of irritating. All I can hear is buzzing. You probably can't hear it on the camera. I hope you can't. Anyway, that's it. Look, that's all I've got time for today. Um, please do leave a like, comment, subscribe. I think I've been fair in this video. I think I've characterized things fairly. Um, maybe a little bit of tough love at the end.

[00:11:29]Probably get a few unsubscribes from that. That's okay. I get them every video now. So, uh, you know, it is what it is. And um thank you very much. I'll see you in a future video. Till the next one. I almost forgot. In my last video uh I obviously had quite an extraordinary background uh behind me and about 25% of the comments on that video were just where is this? Where are you? Uh can I buy it? Um so what I'll do is I I'll leave uh a link or something in the description of this video so that you can see where it is. Uh I literally just didn't have the time to go through and keep answering everybody. Fair warning, it's in the north of Croatia, okay? So, it's not in Wales or something. You're not going to be able to quickly plan a trip to go there and see it. Um, but yeah, super cool place.

[00:12:13]This is also Croatia before anyone asks.

[00:12:16]Uh, I'm in the south of Croatia, just to the north of Split, and eventually I will be in Montenegro, which makes me a bit of a hypocrite cuz I just told you all to go and canvas for Restore Britain. But look, I didn't know that there was going to be a pivotal bi-election called uh when I set off and now I've driven here. Uh and you know, I'm traveling and enjoying myself. So yeah, I know it's a it's a nightmare. I am being a hypocrite. I do get that. I understand that. Um probably a few more unsubscribes just from this. My apologies. Right, till the next one.