‘Andy Burnham Is No Better Than Starmer’ | Britain Will ‘Keep Struggling’

[00:00:00]Well, we might have expected Andy Burnham to win, but not by that margin.

[00:00:04]>> No, it's it's a huge margin. At the start of the campaign, I was convinced that Andy Bernham would win, but nowhere near by that majority. It's striking and it will resonate both particularly within the Labour Party and Labor MPs across the Midlands and the North, but obviously uh also resonate in terms of overall British politics as you've been discussing. Was it a bad result for Reform UK?

[00:00:33]>> Yes, it was. And uh there's no doubt about it. There are stories in the media about Nigel Farage leaving Wigan kind of early in the morning. There's it's a much bigger Labor majority than was expected. And inevitably, and I fought a bi-election many years ago. It's a very difficult set of circumstances. People will blame the reform candidate. That's not fair on him. The public gaze has just been quite incredible and overall it's a bad result for reform but also below the level. Reform actually lost council seats in Essex, in Roford and in Swansea I believe last night as well. So uh interesting messaging.

[00:01:17]>> However, interpreting the results of a bi-election or local elections in relation to a potential general election, that's a fool's errand, isn't it? You can't look at what happened in Makerfield and think that that's what'll happen nationwide.

[00:01:32]>> Absolutely. It's the riskiest job going would be or riskiest decision going to to say yes this is what happened in June in 2026 and whatever the general election is we're going to say that will happen this will happen or whatever you have to judge politics particularly because despite reform's problems we are in a multi-party state people's voting habits are incredibly fluid at the moment there's quite a lot of argument that result in Makerfield and in Abedine in particular were to do with in part tactical voting.

[00:02:10]So yes, don't try and project what might happen in July or August 2026, let alone a bit further beyond. Now, it's a dilemma for Andy Burnham if he becomes prime minister, whether to go to the country sooner rather than later, Robert. He's going to be more popular in October than he is February next year or May.

[00:02:33]>> There's no question about that. He will be. But what happened with that huge majority last night is there are large numbers of Labour MPs particularly in the Midlands and the north of England who will they may have thought they might support Andy Burnham but they weren't absolutely sure but suddenly they discovered they could hold on to their seats at at a general election where they may have written themselves off under Kestama but those same people will be saying, "I want to stay as an MP through 26, 27, 28," rather than calling it a general election. And the whiff of Andy Bernham calling a general election in the near future will cause quite a lot of those Labour MPs who think there is a prospect of them staying as MPs to move away from Andy Bernham if that's what they think he's going to do. Now, like yourself, Robert Edwina Curry is someone that knows her political onions.

[00:03:35]She thinks there's a chance Sakir Stalmer will look at the numbers, fall on his sword, potentially announce his departure within days. Is that credible, do you think?

[00:03:46]>> Yes, I do. I didn't think it would happen until I short saw the declaration last night and the size of Andy Bernham's majority. But at this point, I just identified there's lots of Labour MPs who may have been uncertain, particularly in the Midlands and the North, and they suddenly think, "Oh, I could win." Now, under those circumstances, the time scales change, and I think there will be a lot of people saying to Kim Kharma, see sense, go gracefully, don't fight it out.

[00:04:20]Having said that, Steve Reed's been doing media this morning making absolutely clear that the last thing Andy Bernham should do is uh challenge for the leadership. So, we are in a difficult position, but I've brought forward my assessment of when Kestama will go >> and do you think that a coronation would harm Andy Bernham given the fact that he might seek a substantial mandate from the party? Is is a coronation problematic? Will it sew seeds of problems for the future?

[00:04:54]>> It's it sews sews problem sews problems.

[00:04:59]God, I can't speak. Um been up too long.

[00:05:02]It is a tongue twister that one. I'll give you that. I've been up right through the night. So, uh we're very grateful.

[00:05:07]>> And it's not just it's not just the Labour Party that a coronation causes problems, but also we saw this within the Conservative party as well. There's a sense that the members have not had their voice heard. They've not had the issues debated and also that the person who is crowned hasn't been honed as party leader stroke prime minister adequately and members will say oh they made that error because they were they through a coronation are not the best to achieve party. Uh stay with us if you can, Lord Robert Haywood. We are so happy to have you. We know you've been going all night, but we we rely very very heavily on your your wise judgment on this. With us live from Makerfield is Samara Gil, who is our senior political correspondent. And Samara, it was a seismic result for Andy Bernham. Why do you think Andy Bernham performed so well? Um was it a protest vote from other parties? Was it his magnetic personality? What's your reading of it?

[00:06:19]>> Look, it's easy to be popular when you've been mayor. That's the simple uh fact. And you know, he Manchester has benefited from a lot of foreign investment from China. Uh a lot of sort of urbanization. It's become quite a very uh quite quite a nice city. And I think people looked to that and thought, okay, Andy's been able to do that there.

[00:06:42]Maybe he can do that for our town, but I think there will be a a divide between towns and cities in the upcoming elections or or whatever election does come to pass. I know you keep saying this morning, Mark, that there will be a general election. I trust every word you say. I I'm with Cameron here actually.

[00:07:00]Uh he's a local resident. Uh Cameron, what do you do in the area of Wigan?

[00:07:05]>> I'm a traffic marshal. Work for weights on building sites. So, a lot of construction work.

[00:07:11]>> Yeah. Yeah.

[00:07:12]>> And who what was your voting intention?

[00:07:14]>> If I was going to vote, it would have been Restore Britain, right? Obviously, I didn't vote and obviously didn't win like, but that's who I would have voted for. Restore Britain.

[00:07:21]>> And why didn't you vote? What was the kind of reasoning behind that?

[00:07:24]>> Time to vote and get out there. So, I missed my opportunity.

[00:07:27]>> Yeah. You're working hard. You're working hard in this city. Yeah. What What drew you to uh to restore?

[00:07:34]>> Just the values and the core the core um what's the word I'm looking for?

[00:07:40]the main the main like points of what they want to do mainly restoring Britain like >> stopping the boats, stopping the immigration um a lot to do with that more for me than anything else >> and why not res reform which has got very similar policies. Nigel went back on a lot of things that he said. He's done a lot of U-turns on a lot of things he said. Um kicking out RERT law because of how he wanted to go about the immigration. So just a lot of backtracking from Nigel Farage himself.

[00:08:10]>> And Andy Bernham has won today Labour.

[00:08:12]He's now the Labour MP for Makerfield.

[00:08:15]What do you what's your impression of him? Why do you think he won? Just to reiterate Mark's question, why was he so popular? I think the majority of people have voted for him so that he can be the next prime minister sort of to get the ball rolling and getting Kia Star. I think that's the the the popular reason on why he's been voted in and the majority of the reason why he's been voted in.

[00:08:33]>> And would you even consider voting for Labor if there was a general election within this year and Andy Bernham was the the head of that party?

[00:08:40]>> No, I think they've done too many things now that have can't be looked back on.

[00:08:45]That can't not be looked back on. So, I think it's time for someone else. It's always been a two-party system. So to me, voting for Labor or Conservatives is just the same insanity of what been doing for the past 20 years. Why would you do the same again over and over? It doesn't make any difference. So I think it's time for a proper change, which I don't think would come with reform.

[00:09:02]Reform to me are just the Conservatives in a different blue. So I think the only logical party is restore.

[00:09:08]>> There you go. Those are the thoughts from a local resident of Wigan. Thanks so much, Cameron, for speaking to us.

[00:09:13]Really appreciate it. He's going to go back to building the country up. Uh so there you go Mark. That's a really interesting insight, isn't it?

[00:09:20]>> It really was fascinating. Cameron very much an alarm clock Brit who feels that actually Restore UK are the real deal and he thinks that reform are pretty much Tories in disguise. Well, let's hear now from the leader of Reform UK.

[00:09:39]His first response to the defeat of Reform UK in the Makerfield bi-election.

[00:09:44]Take a listen to this. Well, the Makerfield bi-election was a dramatic, emphatic win for Andy Burnham, uh, with a vote share that nobody could quite see coming. In many ways, he's a popular local mayor, just as Boris Johnson was a very popular mayor in London just a few years ago. But what really happened here is it was vote Burnham, get Star out, which of course was our campaign message leading up to the locals on the 7th of May. So, we were slightly hoist with our own petard. As for the reform vote share, well, I thought we get 18,000 votes. We got just shy of 16. So, I'm disappointed by that. No question about it. But I would say this, there's a couple of thousand voters there who would normally have gone out and voted reform that voted restore. And I would say directly to them, what do you want?

[00:10:33]We are the challenger party to the left in this country. And I would urge you to think again. I really, really would. In Scotland, we were pleased to come second in our growth. But the Conservatives had a win in Abedine South. Well, good for them. There's an irony though that it was Jeremy Hunt's budget that destroyed investment in the North Sea. They've won. And I think what we'll see now is the Conservatives will have their pockets of strength around the country.

[00:11:00]But in the north of England, the Midlands, South Wales, many other areas, the Conservative vote now averages in bi-election after bi-election around about 2%.

[00:11:12]So reform still is the big national party on the center right. A disappointing morning, but we keep going.

[00:11:21]Well, a fascinating response there from the leader of reform UK to their defeat in Makerfield, Robert, Lord Robert Hwood Pollster and Tory Pier. Your reaction to what Nigel Farage had to say there?

[00:11:35]>> Well, I think he's wrong on something he said because he said that reform came second in our broth. They didn't. They actually came behind the Conservatives.

[00:11:43]I may have misheard what he said, but that's certainly what I thought he said.

[00:11:48]and the Conservatives were second uh to the SNP. Um can I just also make a lovely obser or an observation about what Samara said about be it's easy to be popular if you're a mayor of a great city like Manchester. It is but there are many people who will be watching and listening to this program will think Sadi Khn in London doesn't quite have the same pull. Um it's it's not as easy as one might think. Um so uh yes politics is in an interesting state. I was very interested by the interview that Samara did with the uh worker camera. Yeah.

[00:12:28]>> His criticism of Nigel Farage Nigel Farage made the comment well we can come together restore and reform. I there's quite a lot of evidence that actually people who are moving to restore have decided they don't like Nigel Farage and have looked for an alternative. It's not so much the different policies that many of them are making a judgment about the personalities.