This major Makerfield victory has made it inevitable: it’s now time for Keir Starmer to step aside | Neal Lawson

T hat tingle of emotion you felt when you awoke today? That is the long-lost feeling of progressive hope. That it comes from Makerfield is all the more remarkable. Reform has been defeated in a seat that it should have won at a canter – trailing Labour, even when its voteshare is combined with that of Restore . It finished second there in the 2024 election and it recently won all of the council seats. If Reform had faced any other politician, its candidate, Robert Kenyon, would be heading to Westminster. But Reform was up against Andy Burnham, probably the only Labour candidate who could have held Makerfield. He is the only candidate for the party’s leadership who can defeat Reform, and the causes of Reform, and bring in a new era of progressive government. To say there was a lot riding on Makerfield would be a massive understatement . Labour would have been in total despair had it lost this byelection – and that bears witness to the existential crisis the party is in. That situation will not change after this remarkable win. But it gives Labour a lifeline. For Burnham, it was only ever going to happen this way. In echoes of Labour before Tony Blair was carried to the leadership in 1994, the party would come to him. …