Little love lost for Labour government among focus group of Makerfield voters

Andy Burnham makes a lot of the Westminster political class being out of touch with the places and the people beyond its tight boundaries of the Palace of Westminster and Whitehall, and the sense it's populated by people of privilege who attended private schools and Oxbridge and who hail from the capital or the shires of the south.

His pitch to the voters of Makerfield in the North West is that he is for them. His proof point is how hard he fought for Greater Manchester during the COVID-19 crisis.

Burnham's fury - caught live on the cameras in the centre of Manchester - in 2020 when he learned that the Conservative government was cutting financial support and putting Manchester into a stricter lockdown, was immortalised in memes that spread all over social media as he launched a blistering attack on Westminster for trying to grind people down.

"It's brutal to be honest, isn't it? This is no way to run the country in a national crisis. It isn't. This is not right," he said.

His campaign slogan, "Vote Andy, for us", is borne from that period.

Now he wants to take that fight from Manchester to No 10, and is knocking on doors around the small towns and villages that make up the constituency, promising voters he will put their communities and others like them that have "been at the back of the queue" at the front of it.

I do understand where he is coming from and why his argument is potent and has appeal.

For someone who grew up in the south of England, went to Cambridge and now lives in north London, you might at first bundle me into that "Westminster elite bunch".

But my parents came from a very different place and background.

'I spent much of my childhood in Makerfield'

My late mum was born and grew up in Orrell, in the Makerfield constituency.

It was a place where I spent much of my childhood, visiting my grandparents, Ann and Bill, in their red-brick terraced house in Upholland Road.

It is a place surrounded by beautiful countryside, near the lakes, where we used to go camping as kids. The people are warm and look out for each other, the communities are proud, and there is a real sense of place.

It is also a place that my parents, like countless others of that post-war generation, left in order to pursue their careers. My sense as a child was that my mum and my dad, who grew up in Lancaster and won a scholarship to Cambridge, felt they had to move away from Wigan to get the sort of jobs they wanted.

When I was a teenager in the late 1980s and early 1990s, one of my family members came south to live with us to train to be a bricklayer - as my grandfather Bill was - because he couldn't get the training in Wigan. I still have family in Makerfield and Wigan.

Makerfield is a working-class place made up of former coalfield communities.

There is little immigration, not much social housing, and its population tend to be educated to GCSE level or have apprenticeships rather than higher education qualifications. Nearly 97% of the population is white, against an average of 82% across the country.

Makerfield is also badly served by rail links, which means that, despite being nestled between Manchester and Liverpool, it has not become a commuter belt. Its town centres have become run-down and have become a big conversation in this election.

It is also now Labour's sixth most vulnerable seat in the North West.

So it has become not just a local election but a symbol, a test case of whether Andy Burnham's Labour Party can win back the red wall that in the 2019 general election turned to Boris Johnson and in the most recent local elections turned to Reform, as the party picked up 24 out of the 25 council seats contested in Wigan in May.

Voters thinking 'very carefully' who to vote for

We travelled up to Makerfield this week to talk to some of the people who will decide the by-election with the More in Common polling company.

The group of voters selected was made up of people who have, or are considering, voting for all the main parties standing. It was clear from the conversation I observed between them and pollster Luke Tryl that they are thinking very carefully about how to vote this time.

Our group all understood how important this by-election is and what the implications might be, not just for Makerfield but the entire country.

Mike Irving, a veteran who told us he had never voted Labour in his life, said he had been to a coffee morning hosted by Burnham and was considering lending Burnham his vote in this by-election.

"We've got a voice here to change the country," he told us. "We've got a chance of a lifetime here to impact the way we want it to be."

Gillian Reed was considering her vote against the other leadership options: "There's gonna be a leadership challenge regardless of the outcome. So your choices then are looking like Angela Rayner, Wes Streeting, Ed Miliband, and possibly David Lammy. They're the names that are being touted. I'd rather have Andy Burnham than any of them."

Andrew Gower said he thought Andy Burnham was "one of us".

"I like him more than Keir Starmer. I think he's more for the working class. That's how he just comes across, like he's one of us, you know, rather than one of these politicians, like the majority of them, who you can't trust," he explained.

Anthony Wood, a retired firearms officer, was less sold on Burnham as he spoke of the Manchester growth effect not spilling out to places like Makerfield, citing what he thought were poor transport links.

He said: "In my profession, quite a lot are anti-Andy Burnham… Just about what they feel he hasn't achieved or what he hasn't done for Manchester itself."

Laughing group dismissive of Starmer

When the group was asked what they thought of Keir Starmer, they looked at each other and laughed. There wasn't anger towards him; the mood was instead dismissive.

Leah Aldred told us:  "I don't know much about him, but I know that I don't like him. But when I'm actually asked that question, I can't tell you why I don't like him."

Others picked up on the U-turns, with some criticising Starmer's decision to reverse the two-child benefit cap and the Mandelson debacle.

Anthony Wood said: "All the U-turns they've done. [They say] we'll do this and everyone goes 'ooohhh' so they drop it and go back. And then they do something else and somebody else [says something]. How can they not have got this right with all the years they've had a chance to plan it?"

Gillian Reed said Starmer doesn't represent the Labour she grew up with, adding: "Just everything he does seems to be against the working people.

"Everybody might need help at some point in their life. But what about young families, young working families who are both going out to work? They've got a couple of kids and they are scraping by week to week. Where's the help for those people?"

This part of the North West voted Reform in May's local elections, with all the council seats in this constituency going to Nigel Farage's party.

Burnham's team know this is a high-risk race and it is flush or bust. They hope that Labour voters who have left the party will come back to give Burnham a chance.

One senior figure who knows Makerfield well explains that voters here think Labour has left them and they want Labour to be better. They want a leader who "represents the people to the system not the system to the people".

Welfare and immigration main topics for voters

One thing that struck me in the focus group was voters' approach to welfare and immigration.

These were clearly a group of people who believe in the social contract, but think the government has let them down on welfare and immigration.

They spoke often about fairness and their perception that political leaders are not being fair when it comes to people working hard and paying in and others - be those on long-term benefits or illegal migrants - who are not.

Mike Irving made the point that he thought some people "treat benefits as a salary and it shouldn't be, it's not affordable".

Tracey Lay also dived into the sense of fairness around welfare, saying: "I think we need to shake up the welfare system. I don't think it's about cutting the welfare bill, as in lowering the amount of money that people are paid.

"What people are currently paid is not liveable. It's disgraceful. But I think there are people that are being paid benefits that should not be entitled to benefits and I'm not necessarily talking about immigrants. I'm talking about the situation that you have with generational benefits claimants, of never having any intention of working regardless.

"I think if you've paid in, fine. If you've never paid in, then I think they should give them work in order to claim their benefits. Clean the streets, pick up the litter."

Gillian Reed spoke of a sense of unfairness about having to provide for those arriving in the country on small boats: " If you're a young couple, a single person with no children, and you're made homeless, then you're just left to fend for yourself. You won't be put up in a hotel or in temporary housing or anything.

"Now, if you come over on a boat, on a dinghy, immediately that night you've got a bed for the night, you've got a roof over your head and you've got all your basic things that you need. You'll get health care. You'll get dental care which is inaccessible to most people at the moment.

"And that's why people are up in arms about it, because that's fundamentally unfair."

Mixed views on Reform candidate

Reform's Robert Kenyon had mixed reviews from the group.

The local plumber has made his lack of political experience a virtue, but some voters picked up on that when he was placed against Burnham, with Gillian Reed calling him "a bit wet behind the ears".

"He's not going to be able to make any real changes for us or for the country," she added.

Mike Irving thought Kenyon would have "walked it" in a general election but was facing much greater scrutiny and pressure in the by-election.

Kenyon's disparaging remarks about women split the group.

Leah Aldred said Kenyon was "your average narcissistic, sexist man to be honest", while Gillian Reed and Tracey Lay were a little more forgiving.

"I've heard most of those comments from extended family members. It's the kind of thing people say. I don't think it necessarily represents exactly what you believe," Tracey said.

But Anthony Wood made the point that those comments could cost you your job in other professions and you wouldn't have got to your 30s or 40s in your career: "You'd have said that, and you'd have been binned."

'It's a two-horse race between Labour and Reform'

As for the other parties, our focus group had little to say about them.

Saxon Bright was positive about the Greens, but made the point that this was a two-horse race between Labour and Reform.

"I think if we could get the Green Party in there, I think they would do a lot of good. And I think in other areas they've done a lot of good," he said.

"But again, you've got to vote tactically. And I think if you vote for Green now, you kind of shoot yourself in the foot in a lot of ways."

Mike Irving thought Michael Winstanley for the Conservatives came across well on the BBC Question Time panel: He said: "He's used to public speaking as an ex-mayor of Wigan. When you're comparing him against the way the Reform candidate spoke, it's like chalk and cheese, but they've no chance round here."

The focus group didn't know much about the Lib Dems.

Read more: Who is standing in the Makerfield by-election?

But Rupert Lowe's Restore Party is getting some cut-through in this by-election.

When I asked Nigel Farage about why he thought the former Reform MP's new outfit was picking up support in Makerfield earlier this week, he was quite tetchy, saying it was being driven by Elon Musk's support for Restore and the amplification the world's richest man and owner of X gives you on social media platforms.

But the competitor on the right of Reform is causing difficulties for them in this race.

"I really like Rupert Lowe. I think he comes across a lot better than a lot of other politicians," Tracey Lay said. "I don't think he should have put his cap in the game for Makerfield. I think it's splitting the right vote and it's going to allow Andy Burnham to win. I think he's made a mistake."

Little love lost for Labour government

My main takeaway from the focus group is that there is very little love lost among these voters when it comes to the Labour government, and that they are fed up with politicians making promises that they don't keep.

There is genuine concern about the cost of living, welfare and immigration and a desire to put a sense of fairness and personal responsibility back into the social fabric of our country.

It was also pretty clear to me that if Burnham does win the Makerfield by-election next week, it will be his personal brand that carries it, and he will be able to go to Westminster emboldened as the politician that can beat Reform.

John Healey's resignation this week has only served to hasten Starmer's departure from No 10 should Burnham succeed in Makerfield next week.

Team Burnham would like an orderly transition, and the pressure will only build on Starmer if Burnham succeeds.

An election to be decided next week by 76,800 people living in this constituency nestled between Manchester and Liverpool will affect millions more.

(c) Sky News 2026: Little love lost for Labour government among focus group of Makerfield voters