Andy Burnham's victory in the Makerfield by-election, and the margin of it, is likely to have sharpened the minds of Labour's MPs in the North as they consider their party's future. The Greater Manchester mayor won the by-election with a majority of more than 9,000 and almost 55% of the vote.
Questions of whether Sir Keir Starmer can survive as party leader, and so Prime Minister, have dogged politics since May's local elections brought disastrous results for Labour. Those polls saw it lose councils it had controlled for their entire history, including Sunderland and Gateshead, and be reduced to just two councillors in Newcastle.
Labour won every Parliamentary seat in the North East mayoral area in 2024, but many of those victories came with small majorities, and polls have suggested that pretty many of the region's MPs could be at risk at the next General Election. Reform council wins in County Durham, Sunderland, Gateshead, and South Tyneside over the last year will have only increased nervousness for those MPs.
Mr Burnham's win in Makerfield came in an area that has voted Labour for decades and has historically been a safe Labour seat. But the area had voted comprehensively for Reform UK in May's local elections, and Mr Burnham has shown that he can take on Nigel Farage's party and win.
In the run-up to the by-election, Mr Burnham indicated that he would seek to become Labour leader if he won in Makerfield, while Sir Keir Starmer has been adamant that he wants to remain in Downing Street. Former Health Secretary Wes Streeting and recently resigned Defence Minister Al Carns have also indicated that they will join a leadership contest.
Changing Prime Minister mid-term will be a bad look for a party that criticised the Conservatives for doing that so many times during its 14 years in power. But many MPs and party members will now be looking at national polls that put them 10 or more points behind Reform UK and comparing that to today's result, which saw them win by 20 percentage points, and may think a change of leadership is the best option.
That was certainly the thinking of many MPs who called for Sir Keir to resign after the local elections. Among them were Newcastle North's Catherine McKinnell, Hexham's Joe Morris, and Ian Lavery in Blyth and Ashington. But a number of North East MPs also joined a list saying the PM should stay, including County Durham MPs Luke Akehurst, Alan Strickland, and Sam Rushworth.
All of those MPs will now be considering their position, with a leadership contest looking all-but-certain. Though national polling for Labour looks pretty dire, they will be aware that politics has never been more volatile in the UK.
In the 2019 General Election, Boris Johnson's Red Wall surge saw Labour lose seats in the North East that would once have been unthinkable, such as Blyth Valley and Sir Tony Blair's former Sedgefield constituency. Five years on, it was winning seats it had never won, including Hexham and North Northumberland.
The question for Labour members now is whether it sticks with a Prime Minister who turned a crushing defeat in 2019 into a landslide victory in 2024, or to go with the man who has taken on Reform and won, and with some style.
Mr Burnham's victory speech was very much focused on national change, but held out something to entice Northern voters. "We can't close the North South divide, and we can't make all the great English cities be what they should be, without big change at the national level," he said.
A number of North East MPs have congratulated him on his victory, including Jarrow and Gateshead East's Kate Osborne, North Durham's Luke Akehurst, and North Northumberland's David Smith. Now they and their colleagues have to decide whether they go one step further and start the process that could put Mr Burnham into Downing Street.
