Nigel Farage says Reform UK will 'keep going' after an 'emphatic' win for Labour's Andy Burnham in Makerfield. The insurgent right-wing party, which swept to success in swathes of Greater Manchester during last month's local elections including Wigan, finished second in the by-election which could shape the country's political future.
The now-former Greater Manchester mayor secured a whopping 24,927 votes, a share of 54 per cent, while Reform's Robert Kenyon picked up 15,696 votes, a share of 34 per cent. Restore Britain's Rebecca Shepherd finished third with 3,111 votes - seven per cent - while all other candidates lost their deposits.
Having begun the Makerfield by-election campaign with huge confidence after winning 24 of 25 seats on Wigan council, Mr Farage admitted today marked a 'disappointing morning'. He says the party was around 2,000 votes shy of his target.
Mr Kenyon's campaign was blighted by controversy over historic social media posts - but Mr Farage insists the key factor behind the defeat was Mr Burnham's campaign to unseat Sir Keir Starmer as Prime Minister. And while Restore Britain's votes would not have changed the result in favour of Reform, Mr Farage still urged voters who chose Rupert Lowe's party to 'think again'.
In a video shared on social media, Mr Farage said: 'Well the Makerfield by-election was a dramatic, emphatic win for Andy Burnham, 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.'
'What really happened here is it was 'vote Burnham, get Starmer out', which of course was our campaign message leading up to the locals of May 7. So we were slightly hoist with our own petard.'
'As for the Reform vote share, well I thought we would get 18,000 votes. We got just shy of 16,000, 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, who voted Restore, and I would say directly to them - what do you want? We are the challenger party to the left in this country, and I would urge you to think again. I really, really would.'
The Reform leader also reflected on the party's results in both by-elections on the east coast of Scotland overnight. The party finished second to the SNP in Arbroath and Broughty Ferry, and third in Aberdeen South behind the winning Conservatives and runner-up SNP.
Mr Farage added: 'In Scotland, we were pleased to come second in Arbroath, but the Conservatives had a win in Aberdeen 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.'
'But, in the North of England, the Midlands, South Wales and many other areas, the Conservative vote now averages in by-election after by-election around about two per cent. So Reform still is the big national party on the centre-right. A disappointing morning, but we keep going.'
