For the past two years, Reform’s rising popularity in the polls under the leadership of Nigel Farage, an ally of President Trump and an architect of Brexit, has terrified its opponents.

The mechanics of what happens next, however, are hazy.

“Burnham doesn’t want to be seen to be politically assassinating Starmer,” said Steven Fielding, emeritus professor of political history at the University of Nottingham. “He wants him to go — at least ostensibly — under his own steam.”

Mr. Starmer would lose if he decided to run in a leadership contest against Mr. Burnham, Prof. Fielding argued, and the process would divide and damage the Labour Party. “It would be like Custer’s last stand: Nobody wins, the party won’t win, the country won’t win and he won’t win.”

To trigger a leadership contest, a challenger needs to be a Labour lawmaker — a hurdle Mr. Burnham has now cleared — and have the support of 20 percent of their colleagues, or about 80 lawmakers currently. Under the Labour rulebook, fee-paying party members would get the final choice. However, if Mr. Starmer agreed not to fight and Mr. Burnham was the only candidate, the membership would not have to vote.

Wes Streeting, who recently quit the cabinet as health secretary, has indicated he wants to run for leader, though opinion polls show him to be significantly less popular than Mr. Burnham.

An alternative to a leadership race could be for Mr. Starmer to step aside, perhaps in time for Labour’s annual conference in September, and for Mr. Streeting to accept a senior cabinet position under Mr. Burnham in exchange for agreeing not to force a contest.

On Friday morning, Louise Haigh, a Labour lawmaker and close ally of Mr. Burnham, said she hoped the process would be “as managed and controlled as possible.”

On Friday morning, Louise Haigh, a Labour lawmaker and close ally of Mr. Burnham, said she hoped the process would be “as managed and controlled as possible.”

“I would hope that Andy and the prime minister can speak over the coming days,” Ms. Haigh told the BBC. “We want to avoid a leadership contest if possible, and we hope that we can agree a way forward.”

So far, Mr. Starmer has given no indication that he will bow to pressure and step aside. However, while leading the party in opposition in 2021, he once briefly contemplated resigning for the good of the party after Labour lost a special election in Hartlepool.

He later told Sky News he considered quitting “because I didn’t feel that I should be bigger than the party and that if I couldn’t bring about the change, perhaps there should be a change.”

One way of putting pressure on Mr. Starmer would be for ministers to threaten to resign from his government, if he refuses to go. In 2022, mass ministerial resignations forced the Conservative prime minister, Boris Johnson, from Downing Street, by making his government untenable.

If he is confident enough of his support, Mr. Burnham could effectively tell Mr. Starmer to choose how he wants to wrap up his time as prime minister: the easy way or the hard way.

In either case, the scale of Mr. Burnham’s victory has left him in a commanding position.

In the fight for Makerfield, Reform U.K’s candidate, Robert Kenyon, faced competition from a new far-right party called Restore Britain. Some analysts expected that to split the vote, letting Mr. Burnham through by default. But Mr. Burnham’s vote total easily exceeded that of both Reform and Restore combined.

Some factors helped Mr. Burnham who, as mayor of Greater Manchester, had established himself as a popular local politician. Because of his well known ambitions to take over the Labour Party, some voters may have opted for him in the hope of getting rid of Mr. Starmer.

On Friday, Mr. Farage said he was “disappointed” with the outcome, but said Labour had benefited from running a campaign that urged voters: “Vote Burnham, get Starmer out.” Reform, Mr. Farage argued, was successful in many municipal elections in May after arguing that voting for his party would help get rid of Starmer, so “we were slightly hoist with our own petard.”

But the loss in another special election will prompt soul-searching in Reform, which saw Makerfield as a stronghold.

Reform has led other parties in national opinion polls for more than a year, with about 30 percent saying they supported it last year. That share has dipped recently to around 25 percent.

Reform lost a special election in February to the Green Party in the Gorton and Denton district in northern England, and it lost another one last year in Caerphilly to Plaid Cymru, a center left Welsh nationalist party, in a contest for a seat in the Welsh Parliament.

“If we can’t win in Makerfield, can we win anywhere?” Tim Montgomerie, a former Conservative who defected to Reform, pondered in an interview with The New York Times last month.

The result may indicate, some analysts say, that Reform’s agenda is so polarizing that a majority of British voters will opt for whatever party they believe can defeat it in any specific vote, even if it’s not their first choice.

For now, Mr. Burnham, who took a gamble by running in the Makerfield seat, has hit the political jackpot.

“The way that Burnham won has created an even greater sense of momentum and inevitability, that’s he’s the one that can save the Labour Party,” said Mr. Fielding. “It’s in the Labour Party’s interests for this to be resolved without a leadership contest by the end of next week.”

>>1520329
>Labour defeats ReformUK
Worse still:
Labour: 54%
Restore UK: 6.8%
And the latter only exists via a sole MP - elected in 2024 - leaving Reform UK. All the by-elections Reform have lost since.
>2024
>Labour won with a massive majority
>2026
>Labour win by-election with a massive majority
>municipal elections
>Reform UK won St. Andrews & Docklands seat in Hull: by Salman Anwar
So much for the notion that Reform UK is anti-immigration
>Restore UK: 6.8% in Makerfield, won by Labour
So much for the notion of being anti-immigration winning votes.

>>1520330
>The rapes will continue until morale improves

>beaten in by-elections
>Makerfield: Labour 54%. Restore UK 6.8%
>nobody's being taken in by Restore's lies: or Labour wouldn't have won yesterday
The beatings of liars will continue until opinions improve.

>>1520329
>Labour had benefited from running a campaign that urged voters: “Vote Burnham, get Starmer out.”
Big if true, considering the best way to get the maniacal leader of a failed party out of office is to NOT vote for his party in elections. What a lousy state of affairs.

>>1520449
Not really.

>Big
>Labour 54%, Restore UK 6.8%
Facts destroy so-called 'Truth'. Certainly now (Un)Restore(d)'s Lies
>get the maniacal leader of a failed party out of office is to NOT vote for his party in elections
But enough about Boris 'Bozo the Clown' Johnson, then the 50 day lettuce Liz Surgical Truss, and the drip in the leaky rowing boat that was 'HMS Conservative Party': Rishi 'Ritchie Rich' Sunak.
>a massive 400+ seat majority in 2024
>a massive 54% win 24 hours ago
What a lousy state of affairs for inferior subhuman lying white rightards
Yes, The beatings of liars will continue until opinions improve, despite what subhumans living in a certain river in Egypt claim to the contrary after their wrong opinions - thus lies - are destroyed by reality

>>1520329
Lol. The Bongs never learn do they.
The Canada of europe will continue to suck shit.
Maybe in 500 years you can claim to be indigenous peoples.

Lol. Subhuman rightards never learn, do they?
Lying subhuman white rightards will continue to suck shit.
Maybe they'll be listened to, just before the heat death of the universe.