When Professor Sir John Curtice speaks, the political world listens. Yesterday, the polling guru said that the presence in the Makerfield by-election of Restore Britain, the party founded by former Reform UK MP Rupert Lowe after he fell out with Nigel Farage, could hand victory in the critical contest to Andy Burnham.
The only poll so far in Makerfield shows Labour on 43 per cent with Reform on 40 per cent and Restore Britain on 7 per cent.
As Sir John put it: ‘The place is on an absolute knife-edge, so far as what is sometimes thought as being the Right-wing bloc and the Left-wing bloc… Restore Britain is intervening and making life much more difficult for Reform… so far as Burnham is concerned, the intervention of Restore Britain is definitely good news.’
Even though there is a clear anti-Labour – and thus anti-Burnham – majority in Makerfield, the presence of the Restore Britain candidate could split that vote and hand victory to Labour on June 18.
That would not only mean that Makerfield’s voters end up with a Labour MP when a majority there want to send the party packing, but they foist Andy Burnham on the rest of us, enabling him to become prime minister. All because of the political vanity of Rupert Lowe.
Matters are even more critical given that the Greens are planning to devote ‘only limited resources’ to the by-election. In other words, they’re happy to help Burnham’s chances – and will not repeat the mass mobilisation of activists seen in February’s Gorton and Denton by-election, where they won the seat.
This surely makes Restore’s determination to stand in Makerfield even more absurd. Make no mistake, Burnham is cynically using the voters in the constituency to get to Downing Street. And if he does make it, we will face the most Left-wing government in our history.
The rumours are that Restore Britain leader Rupert Lowe, far from giving in to demands to unite the Right, is only doubling down
This is a man whose answer to Britain’s problems seems to be to increase taxes, then put them up again, even though they are already higher than ever before. A man who believes in nationalisation, more state control, the reversal of Brexit and for men to be able to self-identify as trans and use women’s toilets and changing rooms.
None of this accords with anything Rupert Lowe believes in – quite the opposite – and yet his pride and his vendetta against Nigel Farage could see it all come to pass.
The rumours are that Lowe, far from giving in to demands to unite the Right, is only doubling down. But this is madness. The fact is that if the Right – by which I mean Reform, Restore and the Conservatives too – joined forces, it could win not just Makerfield but in the longer term seize power across the country.
According to a new analysis of this month’s local elections, if the Conservatives and Reform UK were willing to form coalitions an additional 23 more councils currently under no overall control would be run by Right-wing councillors.
It is one thing to analyse the status of councils on paper, of course, quite another expecting the two parties to work together in the real world. At the moment, Kemi Badenoch’s Conservatives and Nigel Farage’s Reform UK are themselves engaged in a bitter fight to become the leading vehicle for opposition to Labour. According to the polls, there is little doubt that Reform is winning that fight.
The latest PollCheck average of recent polls has Reform UK on 27.3 per cent, ahead of Labour on 19.7 per cent and the Conservatives on 17.9 per cent. The Greens are on 13.7 per cent and the Liberal Democrats on 12.4 per cent. A crude addition of the Reform and Conservative vote puts them at 45.2 per cent – landslide territory.
But there is no prospect of any such deal at the moment. We could be three years away from the next election and if, as Harold Wilson famously said, a week is a long time in politics, three years is an eternity. So much could change.
The Reform bubble could burst and their votes peel off to the Tories and other parties. The Tories, with their leader now beating everyone else in the polls, could find that her brand of plain-talking politics starts to win real support.
The prospect of a Labour/Green coalition winning a general election may be enough to knock heads together and force the Right to form a pact. For now, this is all beside the point. The current battleground is Makerfield. And it could not be more important.
If Rupert Lowe decides to set aside his own ambition and co-operate with Reform next month, he could be the hero of the hour, demonstrating to voters how Labour can be defeated. He could be the man who brought an end to the ruination of our country and set Britain back on track.
If he chooses not to, the consequences for this country could be too disastrous to contemplate.
