Labour looks set to pass its first test with voters since Andy Burnham took over as prime minister, with the party’s candidate the favourite to succeed him as Manchester mayor in today’s by-election
The race to replace Burnham has been somewhat “overshadowed by events in Westminster” over the past week. But the region’s two million voters go to the polls today to take part in “the biggest by-election in British political history”, said The Guardian.
Who’s running?
Bev Craig, current leader of Manchester City Council, is standing for Labour against Reform UK councillor for Baguley, Sian Niamh Astley, in what has been a heated contest between the two parties.
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Other names throwing their hat into the ring include Altrincham councillor Geraldine Coggins, representing the Green Party, Bowdon councillor Phil Eckersley for the Conservatives, and Didsbury West Liberal Democrat councillor Richard Kilpatrick. Marlon West is standing for Restore Britain, with former mayoral candidate Marcus Farmer running as an independent.
How does the vote work?
UK mayoral elections use a system known as supplementary voting that gives voters the option to choose their first- and second-choice candidate.
If any candidate secures more than 50% of the first-choice votes, they will automatically be elected mayor. If no candidate receives more than 50% of the first-choice votes, the contest moves to a second round between the two candidates who received the most first-choice votes. All other candidates are eliminated, and ballot papers are counted again factoring in second-choice votes.
What do the polls say?
When Burnham declared his intention to return to Westminster, “the prospect of Labour losing control of Greater Manchester was used as an argument to keep him in post”, said Dan Haygarth in The Independent. After the mayoral by-election was announced, some bookmakers even made Reform the early favourite, but polls suggest that Labour will retain the mayoralty with “relative ease”, leaving Reform and the Greens to battle it out for second place.
YouGov polling from 17 July had Craig on 38% to Astley’s 24%, with Coggins in third on 17%. But in a second-round run-off, the Labour candidate would trounce Reform’s 62% to 38%
With both the Greens and Reform offering radical alternatives to a deeply unpopular Starmer government, this election could have been “a mighty close battle and very difficult for Labour to hold on”, Jon Tonge, professor of politics at the University of Liverpool, said in The Independent. But now voters are less likely to be “looking for an alternative to Labour; they’re prepared to support Labour, for now at least, across Greater Manchester”.
What’s at stake?
The winner of Thursday's race will take control of the biggest mayoral authority outside London, with a £3 billion budget and wide-ranging powers across housing, health, policing and transport. But the race also has deep implications far beyond Manchester.
Professor Rob Ford, of the University of Manchester, said in The Guardian that the real mark of success would be whether Labour was able to push back the Green tide in Manchester and close the gap in Reform-leaning areas such as Wigan and Bolton.
Whatever the result, Greater Manchester will be “very close to the heart of power given the location of Number 10 North”, Professor Andrew Russell, from the University of Liverpool, said on the BBC. “Not for the first time of late, all eyes will certainly be on the city.”
