The message from Makerfield… and the warning from Aberdeen South…

Response to last night's extraordinary by-elections...

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Recently that I helped lead an effort to encourage the Green Party not to throw everything at the makerfield by election. In return for not doing so we asked that Andy Burnham should reassert his commitment to proportional representation. He did so. The Green Party put only very light resources into this byelection, which was clearly completely unwindable for it, …and the results are now visible: Burnham soundly defeated Reform, and has returned to Parliament. As I’ve been arguing for some time, the inevitability of Starmer‘s departure from 10 Downing Street is now clear. Later or sooner, Andy Burnham is the next prime minister of Britain.

Burnham will not solve this country’s problems. His politics are very far from being up to that. The case for profound true wholesale change remains as strong as ever. Only the Green Party come anywhere close to offering that kind of change. But Burnham‘s succession soon to the premiership does at least provide a chance of a turn towards greater pluralism and towards electoral and perhaps broader constitutional reform.

And for that reason, this post comes to you with a tiny bit more hopefulness than it is usually possible authentically to muster in our very seriously fucked up world.

But we need unfortunately to mention another byelection that occurred last night. The Aberdeen South Parliamentary by-election saw the conservatives defeat the SNP. Central to their campaign was their pathetic promise to wring the last dregs out of the North Sea. The voters bought it. This is a very bad sign for the future of politics and indeed one might say for the future of the Earth. It clearly signals the need for a just transition, and the need for a switch to a more adaptation- rather than mitigation- focused Climate politics. But on a day of extremely high temperatures, with El Niño cranking up, it does cast a very real pall over any encouragement offered by what has occurred in makerfield. And we need to notice that.

One more thing: Burnham’s victory means that there will now be a by-election for the mayoralty in Greater Manchester. In that election, unlike in makerfield, the Green Party is a real contender, especially given the astonishing result at Gorton and Denton a few months ago. Winning that Mayoralty would be an incredible prize – and stopping reform from doing so is essential.