At the park near Ashton FC football ground, 75-year-old Olwyn squints at the future in the bright sunshine. “I’m happy with the result,” she says. “I voted Labour. I like Andy. Nobody had heard of Ashton-in-Makerfield before a few weeks ago.” Behind her, a detached house still proudly displays a Reform sign. “All, I’d say,” Olwyn adds, “is the proof is in the pudding, Andy.” Within the hour, Andy Burnham strides onto the pitch at the football ground to address the sleep-deprived supporters who powered his campaign. Behind him, someone cheekily updates the scoreboard to read: “Home 1; Away - 0.”
Makerfield will be “not a stepping stone, but his touchstone,” Burnham declares. “This is our last chance to change, but we are going to do it together. I am going to make Makerfield a by-word for change in British politics. If policies don’t work for you, they don’t work... This will be the Makerfield Test.”
Just hours earlier, Burnham had pulled off an implausible victory. This string of ex-mining towns and villages are officially among the most Reform-leaning in the entire North of England. Just weeks ago, Reform won 24 of the 25 seats up for election on Wigan council.
Yet the Manchester mayor bet his political future on the people here. He won decisively, not just narrowly. This election has been about ‘proof of concept’. His argument is that he can see off Reform across the country, reversing the teal tide, and that he is ready to unite the country.
Burnham was not afraid of Makerfield because he understands it in his bones. He was raised 20 minutes away in Culcheth. He went on the coach to watch Everton with men like those bearing Reform placards in town yesterday. He went to church with their mums. His kids went to school with lads like the ones circling the Stubshaw Cross Social Club on bikes with oversized tyres. Neither Manchester, nor Liverpool, nor quite Wigan or quite St Helen’s, his everyman charm comes from this no-man’s land of market towns.
But this is also a victory for the women of Makerfield, who turned out for Burnham against ‘Sexist Rob’. Burnham praised his campaign team as a coalition of “strong Northern power-women”, flanked by Labour MPs Lou Haigh, Jo Platt, and Anneliese Midgley, standing with his wife Marie-France van Heel and London MP Miatta Fanhbulleh.
From this semi-rural outpost, Burnham has created a coalition that other politicians have struggled to build. Across Ashton, Hindley, Platt Bridge, Worsley Mesnes, Bickershaw, and other villages, he has led an anti-Reform alliance of voters who still believe it’s possible to change Britain without neighbours turning on neighbours.
Up at Ashton Town Centre, 52-year-old Jane Bale, a retired teacher due to ill health, said she was relieved. “I hope he proves what everyone thinks he can do,” she says. “I struggle to get out to vote because of my disability, and I didn’t vote last time. I suppose I was also disappointed in Labour. But this time I went out to vote for Andy, and I’m glad I did. He’s been a good Mayor, he’ll be a great MP, and now he’s the future of the Labour Party.”
Burnham has pledged to be an MP for everyone “however they voted”, but there are still people who need convincing outside Iceland. Mary Brookes, 77, retired from human resources, says she voted Reform. “I’d have voted Restore if I’d known more about them in time,” she says. “We need to do something about the illegal immigration.”
Bus driver Andrew, 42, and Jade, 32, broke the habit of a lifetime and voted Reform. “Now we'll wait and see if Andy Burnham does a good job,” Andrew says. “We hope he does.” A woman queueing for a pie at local institution Galloway’s said Reform had messed up. “I do think a lot of people looked at Rob Kenyon and thought, he’s not capable.”
Kenyon looked a man out of time yesterday at the polling station with Farage wearing a pristine white England shirt, when 18 of the England squad were born or have parents born on other shores.
Meanwhile, Burnham gave a humble speech to canvassers. “I’m nervous,” he admitted. “But I believe there are life-long Labour voters ready to come back to us.”
One campaign manager told me every single one of these canvassers understood the importance of their role. “They know if Reform wins this one, it’s game over,” he said. “Farage is Prime Minister in three years. We have to win. That’s it.”
Burnham’s support at the Stubshaw Cross Community Club spoke of another coalition – within the party itself. Milling around outside, I spotted old Corbyn hands shoulder-to-shoulder with Blairite former ministers. This is Keir Starmer’s problem now.
Anyone who knows Shakespeare or the Pixar movies knows that stories unfold in three acts. The Manchester Mayoral election must somehow assemble a coalition to defeat Reform again, without Burnham, and in a constituency with Green voters largely absent from this vote. In the chess game to checkmate King Starmer, ’The Makerfield Gambit’ is only the first move.
Back in Ashton, Labour voters Olwyn and her friend Joyce, 74, are just disappointed they missed Hugh Grant. “I’d have answered the door to him!” Joyce laughs.
