Allies of Andy Burnham and Wes Streeting will ask cabinet ministers, friends and Labour grandees to persuade Keir Starmer over the weekend not to fight a leadership challenge.

Burnham, who won a compelling majority in the Makerfield byelection overnight, is expected to travel to London on Monday to meet MPs in the expectation of becoming prime minister within weeks.

One MP said they believed there were about 200 Labour MPs prepared – if necessary – to sign Burnham’s nomination papers for a challenge.

Starmer was said to be calling members of the cabinet on Friday afternoon to set out his determination to fight on. At least two, Ed Miliband and Shabana Mahmood, have previously suggested to the prime minister that he should set out a timetable for his departure.

One source said they believed some other cabinet ministers would press the prime minister about whether fighting a leadership contest would be wise.

Senior Labour sources said they believed that if the prime minister did not resign over the weekend – or indicate that he would allow a transition to a new leader – then there would be an intervention at Tuesday’s cabinet meeting.

Kemi Badenoch has claimed that the Tory victory in the Aberdeen South byelection means her part has won a referendum on more oil and gas drilling in the North Sea.

Speaking at a victory rally in the constituency, she said:

We have won that referendum on oil and gas. Aberdeen has sent a message to the Labour government and to the SNP that we will not be ignored, Aberdeen will not be ignored, the centre will not be ignored …

What is happening right now as we kill the oil and gas sector is we are killing our energy security …

A message has been sent that we do need to drill our own oil in the North Sea, not take oil from Russia or Norway when we have got our own oil right here.

That is all from me for today. Tom Ambrose is taking over.

Keir Starmer has told Labour party staffers that they should focus on the fight against Reform UK.

In a call, he told them:

The tide is turning on Reform. If you look at the national polling, Reform are now only six or seven points ahead of Labour in the national polls, which two years into a five year parliament is a place that we can make huge advances from.

The next opportunity is the Greater Manchester mayoralty, which now will follow as a result of the Makerfield by-election. It’s a chance to go and take the fight to Reform.

It’s really important, it’s a huge byelection, one of the biggest by-elections we’ll ever run. It is really important that we maintain that Labour mayoralty, and that we take Reform on.

The CBI has warned the government against “a summer of speculation and drift”. In a statement, Rain Newton-Smith, the CBI chief executive, said:

The UK cannot afford a summer of speculation and drift while politicians are distracted by internal party dynamics.

The government must remain focused on delivery and implementation.

For strong, stable economic growth you need strong, stable, consistent government.

Political uncertainty dampens business confidence and investment, impacting job creation, wages and the cost of living.

Business needs to know that the government can take big decisions, will deliver on its commitments and is prepared to tackle the rising costs of doing business.

Shakespeare would have loved this: two serious figures, both with a claim to the moral leadership of their party, both with a sense of destiny, one from the north, one from the south, involved in a succession battle, and addressing their loyalists from opposite ends of the country. Shakespeare not being available, let’s hope James Graham does the honours.

Andy Burnham’s win, and in particular the scale of it, has pitched him into a standoff against Keir Starmer. It will probably take a while to resolve, and neither of the two men said anything particularly revealing this morning about the tactics they will deploy. But the two interventions did tell us quite a lot about the state of play.

Starmer went first, with a pooled TV interview (a particularly soulless form of communication championed by No 10 for some years now, allowing the PM to deliver normally pre-scripted lines-to-take, safe in the knowledge there won’t be much time for follow-up questions). Starmer was polite about Burnham, seemed genuinely pleased about Reform UK hitting the buffers, and repeated what he has been saying for weeks about intending to fight any leadership challenge. The struggle for journalists it to work out to what extent he means it, and today he sounded no more gung-ho, or no more insincere, than he has done in the past. We don’t know; perhaps he doesn’t either.

Starmer was at his best explaining why he thinks the government had notched up some solid achievements to its credit. (See 10.30am and 10.36am.) In some respects it has. But the voters of Makerfied clearly did not think so, because they were voting for Burnham to turf him out.

Burnham spoke shortly afterwards. He was giving a stump speech to supporters, and it was a version of the address he has been giving throughout the campaign. He did not reference Starmer, gave no credit to the PM for the things Starmer thinks have gone well, and he spoke as if his byelection victory was about to herald a transformation on a par with the end of winter in Narnia.

There was no common ground; Starmer and Burnham sounded as if they were talking about different governments and different countries, one on the road to recovery, the other a basket case.

We still don’t know what’s coming in Act 2. Already there are reports of people in the Burnham team saying that, if Starmer does not agree to quit voluntarily, it might get rather more unpleasant. We’ll see.

In his speech Burnham set out his view again of how he would apply what he calls “the Makerfield test”. He said:

We will take the energy of this campaign and we will bring it forward into changing British politics for the better, and to make this part of the world – if you like Makerfield test – at the heart of British politics.

When policies come forward, if they don’t work for people here, for the places of this constituency, if they don’t lift people up, then they shouldn’t happen at all.

We’ve not had a country run on that basis before. Places like this have often been an afterthought. Westminster has looked past the communities of this constituency.

Well no more. That changes today.

Burnham suggested a Reform UK win in the byelection would have shown that Britain was starting to take a path towards “greater darkness”.

He explained:

The best thing that we can say about last night is that there was a risk that we would carry on seeing Britain and the politics of our country go down a path towards greater darkness and division, and ending up somewhere like the United States of America where people don’t talk to each other in the street if they vote different ways or in their workplace.

We will not let that happen here. We will bring people back together.

I said last night, I will be a member of parliament for everybody, however they voted. I will work on a place first, not a party first basis.

I know people who normally vote for the Conservatives, the Liberal Democrats, the Greens, perhaps voted Reform in May, I know they gave me their votes to give me that last chance to do something.

And I respect them for doing that. And I will always then work in the way that that shows how much I value what they did. And that’s the kind of change we need to change in our politics to make it work again for people.

Burnham said that his byelection win was the “last chance” to change the country, and a chance “to lay out a new path for Britain”.

He said:

It is our last chance to change, but we’re going to take it, aren’t we? We are going to take that opportunity and we are going to lay out a new path for Britain.

The word Makerfield in the future must be known as a byword for the change that came to British politics. This is the moment.

We’ve been on a path for 40 years that simply hasn’t worked for people and places in this part of the world, and this now is the change moment.

We have an opportunity to turn the tide, to make the country feel like it’s working again, to make people see that politics can make a positive difference, to make people feel hope again.”

I think we need in this country right now for people to feel a sense of hope that there is something better to work towards on the horizon.

Burnham starts: “What a team, everybody. And what a campaign.”

He thanks the staff at the club where his campaign has been based.

People have put up with a lot of inconvenience, he says.

But they have done it with good humour, which he says is part of the character of the place.

In his pooled TV clip Starmer went on:

If we’d sat here doing this interview at the general election 2024, and you’d put me in two years’ time the economy will be stabilised, in two years’ time waiting lists will be coming down, in two years’ time migration will be back under control, in two years’ time we’ll have '[the relationship we’ve got wih the EU]’, and in two years’ time Reform would be on the run and the tide would be turning, I would have said that would be a very good place to be, and that’s the place we’re in.

In his pooled TV clip, Starmer defended his record, claiming he had done “incredible things”.

He said:

We had a mandate two years ago to carry out change, but we’ve done incredible things.

Two years ago, people said to me it’s not possible to stabilise the economy and invest in your public services and bring down waiting lists. You’re going to have to choose one or the other. We’ve done both.

Two years people said it’s not possible to get migration down from the level of the Tories left it at, which was nearly a million. We brought it down to a fifth of that number.

Two years ago people said it’s not possible to get a much closer, better relationship with the EU … We’ve achieved that.

So a huge amount has been achieved. There’s more to do.

In his pooled TV clip, Starmer also claimed that the Makerfield result showed that the tide was turning against Reform UK. He said:

I think it’s further evidence, actually, if you look at it in the context of other byelections, that the tide is turning on Reform, that they can’t now win byelections.

They’ve reached probably the peak of their support, it is going down. So, very good, congratulations to Andy Burnham, but actually the tide is turning on Reform as well, so this is really important in that respect.

In a pooled TV clip this morning, Starmer said:

If there is a contest, then yes, I will stand.

I have said repeatedly, I am not going to walk away from that.

Keir Starmer has said he “will stand” in a Labour leadership contest should one be triggered after Andy Burnham returns to Westminster, adding he will not “walk away”.

Micheál Martin, the taoiseach (Irish PM) has congratulated Andy Burnham on his byelection victory, RTE’s Tony Connolly reports. Martin said:

I know Andy, I’ve met him on a number of occasions. He has taken a particular interest in Ireland, and he has come to see us on a number of occasions, particularly on the economy and in respect of his role as a mayor in Manchester.

Stephen Flynn, the SNP’s former leader at Westminster, said the SNP must “reflect” on the loss of his former Westminster seat, the Press Assocation reports. PA says:

Douglas Lumsden won the Aberdeen South seat in the early hours of Friday morning, thanks largely to a tactical vote, according to Tory sources, securing 14,308 votes.

Meanwhile, the SNP tally collapsed from 15,213 in the 2024 general election to 8,258 in Thursday’s contest.

Posting on X after the SNP conceded defeat in the contest, Flynn said: “A tough night in Aberdeen that some will need to reflect on, quite heavily.”

He added: “We lost Aberdeen South to the Tories in 2017, and we won it back two years later.

“I’ve no doubt that we can do so again. If we get things right.”

A senior party source also hit out at the SNP’s stance on oil and gas – a key issue in a city which has been dubbed as the oil and gas capital of Europe – suggesting voters do not understand the party’s energy policy or view it as “weak”.

Also posting on X, first minister John Swinney said he was “very disappointed” with the result.

“Very disappointed with the result in Aberdeen South, @theSNP vote remains strong but it is clear that tactical voting has had a real impact on the result,” he said, congratulating Lumsden and praising the efforts of SNP candidate Richard Thomson.

Speaking to journalists after the result, Thomson said the Tories had “thrown the kitchen sink” at the campaign.

“We like not to be out-campaigned, but on this occasion, I think, just the sheer amount of resources that we were up against made it difficult to get the result we’d hoped for,” he said.

The guilty plea of former SNP chief executive – and Nicola Sturgeon’s estranged husband – Peter Murrell did not “make a bit of difference” to the party’s fortunes in Thursday’s poll, he added.

The Green party says it will be “campaigning hard” to win the Greater Manchester mayoralty byelection. Commenting on the Makerfield byelection, a Green spokesperson said:

We welcome the defeat of Reform’s divisive and misogynist campaign, and congratulations to Andy Burnham.

Our candidate Sarah Wakefield ran a brilliant campaign highlighting the positive change the Green party brings to our communities and that we are an island of belonging, not strangers …

The Greens will be campaigning hard to win the byelection for the Greater Manchester mayoralty and, as we showed in the Gorton and Denton by-election and local elections in the area, it is going to be a clear Greens vs Reform race in this election.

Nigel Farage, the Reform UK leader, has said he is “disappointed” about the Makerfield byelection results – and he has urged some of his supporters who defected to Restore Britain to “think again”.

In a video statement about the result, he said:

What really happened here was, it was vote [Andy] Burnham, get [Keir] Starmer out which, of course, was our campaign message leading up to the locals on May 7, so we were slightly hoisted with our own petard.

As for the Reform vote share, well I thought we would get 18,000 votes … we got just shy of 16 [thousand], so I’m disappointed, no question about it.

Addressing Restore Britain voters, of whom he said a “couple of thousand” would usually have voted for Reform, he said:

What do you want? We are the challenge party to the left in this country and I would urge you to think again.

Restore Britain was set up by Rupert Lowe, who was elected as a Reform UK MP in 2024 but who left the party after falling out with Farage. Restore Britain, which was only established earlier this year, is similar to Reform UK in that they are both rightwing, populist, anti-immigrant parties. But Restore Britain is more extreme, and it has benefited from the support of the X owner Elon Musk who has promoted it on his platform.

Wes Streeting, the former health secretary, has issued a statement congratulating Andy Burnham on his victory. He says:

Huge congratulations to @AndyBurnhamGM on an astonishing victory in Makerfield, where Labour lost badly only weeks ago.

It gives us all hope that Labour can still win, but Andy’s campaign is proof that to do so we need to change.

Enormous thanks to everyone involved.

On Tuesday Streeting indicated that he is planning to launch his own leadership challenge next week. He has already been campaigning, making policy announcements and giving a big speech on his economic vision. He insists he has the 80 backers he needs to launch a formal challenge, but some MPs suspect his intention is to do a deal and accept a job in a Burnham administration.

In his statement this morning Streeting is not saying anything more about his potential challenge.

Sharon Graham, general secretary of Unite, one of the biggest unions backing Labour, said this morning that Keir Starmer should stand down and allow the party to have a leadership election. And it should be fought on policy, not personality, she said:

There is absolutely no doubt that over the last two years workers and the working class have fallen out of love with Labour. The win for Andy Burnham in Makerfield is a glimmer of hope but it must not be taken as a business as usual mandate.

It is clear that there now needs to be an orderly timetable for a leadership election and Keir Starmer must do the right thing and step down. The inevitable leadership election must be fought on real change and policies. Not personalities or better speeches.

Harriet Harman, the former Labour deputy leader, has said that she thinks Labour MPs, and not party members, should choose the next leader.

The party’s rules say, if there is a contest, all members get a vote.

But Harman told the Today programme this morning that, with the party in power, MPs should take the decision. She said:

The way you get to be prime minister, and the way you govern the country, is by having the support of the majority of party in parliament. So whoever’s prime minister has to have the support of Labour MPs.

And I think what should happen is that the three contenders – which is obviously Keir Starmer, who’s the prime minister, Andy Burnham, who’s the challenger, and Wes Streeting, who’s also a challenger – should be got in a room by the deputy leader of the Labour Party, Lucy Powell, and the chair of the parliamentary Labour party, Jess Morden, to agree a process whereby the Labour MPs choose who they they want.

Harman said she would also like to see a woman in the contest.

Asked why members should be excluded from voting, Harman said that while it was right to involve them when the party was in opposition, it should be different when the party is in government because “you can’t govern without the support of Labour MPs”.

Asked if she thought Burnham would end up as PM, she said that she did not want to speculate, but that she did think there should be a process.

Patrick Hurley, the Labour MP for Southport, was until recently, and even after the local elections, arguing it would be a mistake for Labour to get rid of Keir Starmer.

In an interview on the Today programme this morning, Hurley said he had changed his mind. He explained:

I’ve been loyal to Keir Starmer publicly and privately. And I think he’ll go down in history as a monumental figure in Labour party politics. He absolutely changed the party from top to bottom after the defeat in 2019, which was a historic defeat. And within five years he’d taken us to a historic victory.

But I do think that to everything there is a season. And I think right now we need a transition to something new.

Asked why he had changed his mind, Hurley said that, while Starmer was “methodical” and “forensic”, what people wanted from politicians was “speed, urgency, decisive action”.

He went on:

After two years, I think what the people of the country are telling me what they want. I think we should be listening to them. We can’t continue to tell the electorate that they’re wrong.

Hurley also told the programe that he did not think there should be a formal leadership election because that would take too long.

Good morning if you are just joining the blog.

Andy Burnham was expected to win the Makerfield byelection, but he’s won big – by a huge margin. Here is Josh Halliday’s story.

Here are the full figures from the count.

Today the attention will focus on what happens next.

Keir Starmer has posted a short message on social media congratulating Burnham, but it is very much a holding statement. (See 6.14am.) As Pippa Crerar reported in her comprehensive over-view 36 hours ago, Starmer has been wanting to fight to keep his job. But the scale of Burnham’s victory changes the balance of power between the two men, and the Burnham camp is now openly saying (albeit politely) that it wants Starmer to accept a timetable for a handover to the new Makerfield mayor. (See 2.05am.) The Home Office minister Mike Tapp was the main Labour voice making the counter, Starmer-loyalist argument in broadcast studios overnight. He claimed letting Burnham take over would trigger “credible calls for a general election” – which no Labour MP wants – ignoring the fact that, when Labour called for an election after Liz Truss replaced Boris Johnson, and after Rishi Sunak replaced Truss, the Conservative government found it very easy to take no notice of said “credible calls”.

The mainstream commentariat view seems to be that it’s when, not if, Starmer concedes, and agrees a timetable for his departure. (See 4.50am.) But the Burnham team have not said yet what handover date they want (Burnam probaby wants by Labour conference in September; Starmer would probably prefer by next summer) and there is no confirmation yet that Starmer will comply. He has the right to insist on a formal leadership election, and this remains a possibility.

It was a bad night for Reform UK. (See 4.50am and 5.30pm.)

But the Conservatives had a very good result in Scotland. Severin Carrell has the story here.

Keir Starmer has congratulated Andy Burnham on his byelection victory. In a post on social media, he says:

Congratulations, @AndyBurnhamGM, Labour’s new MP for Makerfield.

Voters chose Labour’s campaign of hope and optimism over division and hate.

Others might say it was not Labour’s campaign of hope and optimism, but Burnham’s.

Here is a round-up of what some journalists and commentators are saying about Andy Burnham’s win.

From my colleague Jessica Elgot

It now seems beyond any doubt that Burnham will be prime minister. Labour MPs will look at that result - the consolidation of the progressive vote, the swathes of ex-Reform voters returning to Labour - and they won’t be able to wait long.

One (very knowledgeable!) Labour MP told me a week after the campaign launch that they were confident @AndyBurnhamGM would get more than @joshsimonsmp majority. I always kept it in the back of my mind. It was actually almost double.

From Patrick Maguire from the Times

Andy Burnham is going to be prime minister and he is going to be prime minister soon. He is now the only electoral show in town for the Labour Party. The only question now is how quickly others arrive on this plane of reality.

From Emily Maitlis from the News Agents podcast

Makerfield: Burnham has increased his party’s share of the vote astonishingly - with the help of tactical voting from Lib Dem’s , Greens and very possibly Tories too.

Before this result - one current cabinet member told me that they would simply not allow “ a Burnham coronation “ and would feel the need to throw their hat into the ring if it were headed that way. I wonder if that still stands with the scale of this result ? #Makerfield

From Ben Ansell, a politics professor

Increasingly likely we won’t see PM Nigel Farage. That was a poor result for Reform in Makerfield. And a Tory win in Aberdeen South on top.

From Luke Tryl, the More in Common pollster

Nearly a 10,000 majority that’s a seismic result for Labour, if the proof of concept was winning on hostile turf Burnham has done it, uniting the left vote and holding Reform to under 3 pts higher than at the General Election.

Think this is unarguably Reform’s worst night since General Election.

1) Barely any increase in their vote share in Makerfield. 20pt Labour win in a seat that was one of their best second places in 2024.

2) Tories show proof of life and even momentum in battle for the right with Aberdeen South win

3) Restore Britain take 7%, replicated elsewhere in fragmented politics Reform’s path to govt becomes very very hard.

From the New Statesman’s Ben Walker

No poll had Burnham doing as well as this or Reform as worse. Off the charts.

From ITV’s Paul Brand

Aside from the specific circumstances of Makerfield and Andy Burnham’s personal profile, a pattern is emerging in recent by-elections… Caerphilly, Gorton and Denton, Makerfield… the tactical vote to keep Reform ‘out’ is being mobilised with significant impact. Tactical voting is cemented as a defining feature of our politics.

From Adam Payne from PoliticsHome

That’s just a staggering result for Burnham. He hasn’t just ‘taken on’ Reform, he’s smashed them, uniting the progressive vote behind him. Remove the Restore Britain % and it still wouldn’t have been close. In terms of his electoral pitch to Labour MPs, nobody else comes close.

Andy Burnham’s victory speech – a concise summary of themes he has set out before, encapsulated in the idea that under his leadership government policy would in future be determined by the “Makerfield test” (see 3.20pm) – was quite powerful, for anyone still up to watch it, but tonight what matters are the numbers, not the words.

Earlier this week the Spectator was speculating whether Burnham’s lead over Reform UK would be in the low single digits or the high single digits. (See 10.02pm.) There was much talk of whether, if he did win, his support would outnumber the combined Reform UK/Restore Britain vote.

It turns out Burnham is 20 points up – or 13 points up if you wrap in the Rupert Lowe fans with the Nigel Farage fans. He achieved a swing away from Reform to Labour. In the current context, and in the light of what happened in the local elections, that is remarkable. Labour in particular, and progressive politics more widely, has been desperately searching for a Farage repellant for at least a year. Now they have found one.

We heard what’s coming next, because Louise Haigh helpfully set it out on the BBC; Starmer will be asked to agree an “orderly and managed” handover. (See 2.05pm.) Any negotiation ultimately depends on who has the power, and who doesn’t, and, in Labour politics, Burnham now looks unstoppable.

Here are the Makerfield results in full from the Press Association.

Lab hold

Andy Burnham (Lab) 24,937 (54.82%, +9.62%)

Rob Kenyon (Reform) 15,696 (34.51%, +2.71%)

Rebecca Shepherd (Restore) 3,111 (6.84%)

Michael Winstanley (C) 997 (2.19%, -8.68%)

Sarah Wakefield (Green) 308 (0.68%, -3.73%)

Jake Austin (LD) 163 (0.36%, -6.43%)

Count Binface (Binface) 95 (0.21%)

Howling Laud Hope (Loony) 45 (0.10%)

John Dyer (Ind) 37 (0.08%)

Peter Ward (Rejoin) 35 (0.08%)

Dan Clarke (Libertarian) 18 (0.04%)

Ed Gemmell (Climate) 18 (0.04%)

Robert Pownall (Ind) 18 (0.04%)

Paul Gould (Ind) 8 (0.02%)

Lab maj 9,241 (20.32%)

3.45% swing Reform to Lab

Electorate 77,478; Turnout 45,486 (58.71%, +6.31%)

Burnham said it would be a “wrench” to give up his job as mayor of Greater Manchester.

He went on:

But I am not leaving the service of Greater Manchester.

I’ve always been clear that it can’t achieve everything it should be, and we can’t close the North-South divide, and we can’t make all the great English cities be what they should be, without big change at the national level.

I always knew one day I would seek to go back to Westminster to complete that unfinished business, so that Makerfield and Greater Manchester and the north of England can fulfil their potential.

Burnham said the vote against Labour at the local elections was “a loud cry for change”. He went on:

We have begun to answer that to that.

But I do say to my own party - this is a final chance to change.

This is what people said directly to me on the hundreds of doorsteps that I stood on.

We must hear it. We must act upon it, and we must get it right.

There will be no second chance, but it is a chance now, from this result tonight, to build a new politics based on unity and hope, turning away from the path that takes us to a divided, politics of the kind we’ve seen in the United States. We must now take this path and put this country back on the right path, and bring people back together and get things working properly again.

Burnham said he would be an MP for all people in the constituency. He said:

As your member of Parliament, I know people who traditionally vote for the Conservatives, the Liberal Democrats, the Greens and perhaps more recently in May for Reform UK have given me their support in this election.

I will always have respect to them … out of respect for them, I will always take a place first rather than a party first approach.

And I will focus on problem solving rather than point scoring.

And I will work hard after this by election to heal the divisions of this campaign and let it be really understood that I will be your MP however you voted.

Burnham says he is proud people have seen the best of the constituency.

I am proud that this place has shone in the world’s spotlight these last five weeks, and the warm humour and hospitality of its people has been on show for all to see.

And he addresses the claim he is just using the constituency as a stepping stone.

It will never be a stepping stone to me, but instead will be my touch stone.

And he says he wants to put the “Makerfield test” at the heart of British politics, to places neglected by Westminster get their say.

By Makerfield test, he means that if a policy will not benefit Makerfield, and places like it, it should not happen.

Burnham is speaking now.

He says:

Everyone knows that politics isn’t working. Everyone can feel that the country isn’t where it should be.

Tonight could, just could, be the turning point.

From here on, I will give everything I have got to make it so, to ensure the name, Makerfield is forever synonymous with bringing about the change this country needs, bringing back something we’ve lost, hope. A hope for the future.

Here are the key results.

Jake Austin, Liberal Democrats – 163

Andy Burnham, Labour – 24,937

Robert Kenyon, Reform UK – 15,696

Rebecca Shepherd, Restore Britain – 3,111

Sarah Wakefield, Green party – 308

Michael Winstanley, Conservative Party – 997

That means Burnham has won with a majority of 9,241.

The Makerfield result has not yet been declared, but already Labour figures are briefing against each other. Louise Haigh has been saying Keir Starmer should agreed to an “orderly and managed” handover of power to Andy Burnham. (See 2.05pm.) Mike Tapp, the Home Office minister, has also been giving interviews. He told the BBC that he disagreed with Haigh. He said he did not think a handover like that would be realistic, because Burnham “hasn’t laid out his political agenda”, he said. So there woud have to be a contest, he said. And that would mean “chaos”, he said.

Tapp also said that, if Burnham were to replace Starmer, there would be “credible calls for a general election”.

He said he wanted the government to be given time to deliver.

Back to Scotland for a moment, and this is what Andrew Bowie, the shadow Scottish secretary, has said about his party’s decisive win in Aberdeen South. (See 1.58am.)

This is an extraordinary victory for Douglas Lumsden MP and the Conservatives. This is the first time that the Conservative party has gained a Westminster parliamentary byelection in Scotland since 1967.

We said this election was a referendum on the future of North Sea oil and gas, and Aberdeen has spoken loud and clear. Let’s Get Britain Drilling Now.

I look forward to Douglas joining the Conservative team in Westminster, where I know he will work tirelessly to hold Ed Miliband to account and stand up for the people of Aberdeen.

Hannah Al-Othman is a Guardian North of England correspondent.

Lisa Nandy has said the Restore Britain vote “doesn’t seem to be quite at the level that the polls suggested”. (See 10.39pm.)

She said:

I think there’s a misunderstanding about the Restore vote here.

I’ve heard a lot of talk about how this is about Rupert Lowe and his profile, I’ve heard talk about how this is about them splitting the vote with Reform. Actually, they’ve always had a vote here, it’s not significant, it’s usually around six or seven percent of the vote, that if there’s an openly racist party on the ballot, will come out and vote for it.

So the idea that somehow if Andy wins here tonight, it will be because Restore and Reform have split the vote, frankly, I can say it’s for the birds. That group just stays at home if they don’t have an openly racist party to vote for.

And so, it really is about whether the most popular Labour politician in the country can pull off a victory in one of the toughest seats, where we just lost in large numbers seven weeks ago to Reform.

If Burnham does win, as expected, she said:

I hope that we can find a way to pull together and turn our gaze out to the country.

I think it would be a tragedy if we were to descend into infighting and turn the conversation to ourselves.

The reason that Andy has received so much warmth for the campaign that he’s run here is because it has been relentlessly positive, relentlessly hopeful.

Josh Halliday is the Guardian’s North of England editor.

Stop the press. Rupert Lowe just gave an interview to the Guardian - after calling me “a reptile”.

The Restore Britain leader said its vote was “somewhere in the region” of 10% which would be an “unbelievable” result for a party only four months old.

Lowe said it looked like Burnham’s vote had held up “much better than I thought it would”.

Earlier, a senior Labour source said Restore Britain activists had been involved in several incidents involving harassment during the campaign.

One of these incidents, witnessed by a Labour party member of staff, involved a taxi driver following a dispute with Restore Britain activists and local children, who then allegedly smashed the taxi driver’s windscreen.

The incident is said to have taken place near Labour’s campaign HQ in Stubshaw Cross on Wednesday night, the eve of the byelection. It has been reported to Greater Manchester Police, the Labour source said.

A separate incident apparently involved a taxi driver in the constituency being repeatedly asked where he was from by a Restore Britain activist. When told he was from Pakistan, the activist allegedly said he was campaigning to deport people like that taxi driver.

Asked about these alleged incidents, Lowe said he had no knowledge of them but that he was sure “the police will deal with it appropriately”.

“Today all I’ve seen is friendly banter amongst everybody,” he added.

The SNP have held Arbroath and Broughty Ferry. Reform came second and Labour, who were in second place, less than 1,000 votes behind the SNP in 2024, came fourth.

Here are the results in full from the Press Association.

SNP hold

Lara Bird (SNP) 9,802 (40.39%, +5.07%)

Bill Reid (Reform) 4,841 (19.95%, +11.33%)

Jack Cruickshanks (C) 4,524 (18.64%, +3.13%)

Heather Doran (Lab) 3,651 (15.04%, -18.33%)

Tanvir Ahmad (LD) 1,452 (5.98%, +0.88%)

SNP maj 4,961 (20.44%)

3.13% swing SNP to Reform

Electorate 75,985; Turnout 24,270 (31.94%, -25.99%)

Louise Haigh, the former transport secretary who has been one of the key figures running Andy Burnham’s byelection campaign in Makerfield, has told the BBC that, if Burnham wins (and she is clearly confident that he has won), Keir Starmer should stand aside.

She said that in those circumstances Starmer should “reflect on the results”, and on how much better they were with Burnham as a candidate than they were for Labour in the local elections, and then “do what’s best for the party”.

Asked what she meant by this, Haigh said:

I hope that he would consider an orderly and managed transition.

We have said that [Labour] is in an existential crisis and things cannot continue. And it was quite clear after the local elections, unfortunately, that he considered that business as usual would suffice.

Andy has potentially shown tonight that what a change the Labour party can bring … Without that optimism and without that on the ballot paper, then we will see a Reform prime minister at the next general election.

Asked how quickly she wanted the PM to depart, Haigh said that was up to the prime minister. Burnham would not be challenging in the immediate aftermath of the byelection, she said. He would want to speak to the PM “in the coming days”, she said.

Asked if she was talking about weeks or months, Haigh repeated the point about how this was in the PM’s hands.

She also said that Wes Streeting was still threatening to trigger a leadership contest.

Asked whether there should be a contest, she said she understood the arguments in favour of one. But she went on:

If an agreement can be made between potential candidates, then that’s all for the better.

I think dragging any process out for any length of time would be difficult for the Labour party, but more crucially for the government.

I think if that can be avoided and all parties can come to an agreement, that’s all for the best.

But of course, if we’re into a contest and people decide to trigger it, then that’s that’s where we are.

Asked if Burnham could be the PM within weeks, Haigh said she did not want to predetermine the outcome of any discussions. She said it was for the PM to decide. But she hoped he would reflect on what was best for the party and the country.

Burnham’s allies have been saying this sort of thing in private for some time.

But it is significant that someone so close to Burnham is now publicly saying Starmer should agree to an “orderly transition”.

The Conservatives have won a huge victory in Aberdeen South. Here are the full figures from the Press Association

C gain from SNP

Douglas Lumsden (C) 14,308 (49.51%, +25.13%)

Richard Thomson (SNP) 8,258 (28.58%, -4.25%)

Jo Hart (Reform) 2,478 (8.58%, +1.67%)

Nurul Ali (Lab) 1,550 (5.36%, -19.35%)

Mel Sullivan (LD) 1,270 (4.39%, -1.91%)

Jorg Shelton-Eckstein (Green) 974 (3.37%, -0.10%)

David Ballantine (ADF) 59 (0.20%)

C maj 6,050 (20.94%)

14.69% swing SNP to C

Electorate 76,033; Turnout 28,897 (38.01%, -21.93%)

The Scottish National party (SNP) has conceded defeat in the formerly safe seat of Aberdeen South in a shock loss to the Scottish Conservatives, Severin Carrell reports.

Sarah Pochin, the Reform UK MP, told GB News a bit earlier that her party would be “very happy” to come a strong second in Makerfield.

That is not technically a concession. But it is not what you say if you think you have a chance of winning.

Josh Halliday is the Guardian’s North of England editor.

A Reform UK source just told me they currently expect to lose to Burnham by around 2,500 votes. An official spokesperson would not comment on numbers but said they believe it’s “fairly close” and that “no one’s running away with it.”

The spokesperson denied reports that Nigel Farage had left Makerfield, saying he had just been on the phone to him and he was still in the constituency.

Separately, a senior Labour source said it did not look like Restore Britain had been able to turnout its vote to the level that some had predicted.

They said Rupert Lowe’s hardline anti-immigration party could “possibly” achieve 7% of the vote but it was very unlikely to be higher than that.

Lowe, who is giving a series of media interviews, is believed to be claiming to have won 10% of the vote.

And here is the turnout from the Arbroath and Broughty Ferry byelection. It was was 31.36% – down from 57.9% at the 2024 general election.

UPDATE: This has been corrected because the initial figure wrongly said these were the figures for the Aberdeen South byelection.

We have the turnout figure for Makerfield now. It was turnout is 58.75% – up from 52.5% at the general election.

There were 45,510 votes cast.

Lisa Nandy, the culture secretary and MP for Wigan, the constituency next door to Makerfield, has told Sky News that Labour is “cautiously optimistic” about winning the byelection.

She said:

We’re cautiously optimistic. We always knew this would be a hard fight, but we are definitely seeing that Andy Burnham is able to pull some of our voters back from Reform in a way that just seven weeks ago at the local elections we would not thought was possible. We lost every ward in Makerfield to Reform at the local elections just seven short weeks ago and not be a small amount – by thousands of votes …

Whatever the result here tonight, the lesson is that we can actually change people’s minds, we can bring people back to us, we can defeat some of the division and anger that has been on display in this constituency in recent weeks.

Sometimes you can read too much into pictures, but the smile on Nandy’s face suggests “cautiously optimistic” might be a bit of an understatement.

The Scottish Conservatives are optimistic about their chances of winning Aberdeen South, the BBC is reporting. Tom Gordon from the Scottish Daily Mail is hearing the same thing. Paul Hutcheon from the Daily Record says the SNP, who are defending the seat, are “anxious”.

Severin Carrell described the contest in Aberdeen South in this article earlier this week.

Kemi Badenoch has said, if her party wins this byelection, it will be a vote for more oil and gas drilling in the North Sea.

Sarah Pochin, the Reform UK MP, is at the Makerfield count on behalf of her party tonight and she has had to take questions about this video she posted on social media earlier.

In it she says:

England won the football last night.

And thank god they did because, on the occasions that England lose their football matches, the incidents of domestic violence go through the roof.

So, boys. Keep winning.

Asked about this on Sky News, Pochin stressed her record as a magistrate dealing with domestic violence and defended the point she was making – that this is a link between teams losing, and increased incidents of domestic violence.

But she did not seem to grasp that people are criticising her for not explicitly condemning the abusers, and instead suggesting it was somehow the England football team’s responsibility to prevent women being attacked.

Thangam Debbonaire, the Labour peer, was being interviewed at the same time and she told Pochin that in her remarks she “did not put responsibility on the men who do it”.

The Makerfield byelection has regularly been described as potentially the most consequential byelection in British history. People have written that on the assumption that Andy Burnham will win, and that he will replace Keir Starmer as PM. While those both seem to be reasonable assumptions, in a country with a history of parliamentary government as long as Britain’s a description of any event that involves saying it is the most consequential ever is probably not strictly accurate.

Here are just a handful examples of other byelections that have been similar to this one in some respects, or highly influential.

Byelections involving potential party leaders

In Makerfield Burnham supporters think they are voting for the next Labour leader, and Keir Starmer has had to support the Labour candidate while at the same time fearing him as a rival. Neil Kinnock was in a similar position at the 1984 Chesterfield byelection, which was won by Tony Benn, hero of the Labour left. Benn might have beaten Kinnock in the Labour leadership election a year earlier had he not lost his seat in the general election. He was still seen as a rival in 1984 but the byelection win did not propel him to the leadership and, when there was a contest in 1988, Kinnock beat him easily.

William Hague, the then Tory leader, must have had similar emotions when Michael Portillo contested the 1999 Kensington and Chelsea byelection. Portillo too had missed a leadership election he might have won because he had been out of parliament in a general election. A few months later Hague promoted Portillo to shadow chancellor and deputy leader in the hope of neutralising a rival, but Portillo’s influence had peaked and in a subsequent contest he was beaten by Iain Duncan Smith.

Byelections that choose prime ministers

Makerfield might be electing not just a party leader, but a future prime minister. This is not unprecedented because at the 1963 Kinross and Perthshire byelection voters elected an actual prime minister, Alec Douglas-Home. He had been chosen by the Tories as PM three weeks earlier, but at that point he was in the Lords. Taking advantage of legislation passed to help Tony Benn give up his peerage, he quit the Lords and entered the Commons after a Scottish Tory MP (George Younger – the Josh Simons of his day) sacrificed his seat for him .

There are other byelections that have been won by people who have gone on to serve as PM (like Robert Peel and Stanley Baldwin), but in British Byelections 1769-2025, a brilliant selection of essays on this topic edited by Iain Dale, Alex Puffette argues that it was losing the 1899 Oldham byelection that was really important for Winston Churchill because it meant he was able to make his name as a star war correspondent in the Boer war which did more to benefit his career in the long run.

Byelections that bring down governments

Makerfield may lead to the replacement of Keir Starmer at PM. But it won’t bring down the government, unlike the 1922 Newport byelection that led to Conservative MPs deciding to pull the plug on the Lloyd George-led coalition. Austen Chamberlain, the Tory leader at the time, expected Labour to win, but the seat was won by an anti-coalition Unionist (Tory), and the party decided voters were fed up of the pact with the Liberals.

In more recent times the 1990 Eastbourne byelection defeat helped persuade the Tories that Margaret Thatcher had to go, and the 2022 Tiverton and Honiton byelection defeat, and the Wakefield byelection defeat on the same night, helped to finish off Boris Johnson.

Byelections that change policy

If Makerfield leads to Starmer being replaced by Burnham, government policy may change. But perhaps not be much. For a really consequential election, try going back almost 200 years to the 1828 County Clare byelection, which was won by the Irish Catholic Daniel O’Connell (later known as “the liberator”). As a Catholic, he was not allowed to take his seat in the Commons under the laws then in place. But his win led to the governmment passing Catholic emancipation, opening up most public offices to Catholics at a time when all of Ireland was ruled by London, and most of its population was barred from public life.

Robert Kenyon, the Reform UK candidate, says he is expecting a “big vote” in Makerfield. (See 10.26am.) That’s a reasonable assumption. Two years ago, when he was the party’s general election candidate, Kenyon came second here with 32% of the vote. (See 10.27pm.) This time there have been five published byelection polls, from four polling companies, and all of them show Reform UK polling well above 32%.

But they also all show Labour winning.

Here are the figures – in a chart posted by Mark Pack on his the Week in Polls Substack blog.

The reason why Reform UK can do much better than two years ago, but still lose, is because there seems to have been a lot of tactical voting – especially on the Labour/progressive side. People who may have voted Lib Dem or Green two years ago seem to have been voting Labour.

For the record, here are the 2024 general election results in all three constituencies where byelections have taken place today.

Makerfield

Aberdeen South

Arbroath and Broughty Ferry

Andy Burnham has posted this message on social media.

A huge thanks to the people of the Makerfield constituency for your patience and good humour over the last five weeks. My thanks too to the many volunteers who came up to support my campaign. We ran a very positive one and can be proud of it!

Would Burnham be saying thank you to the constituency if he thought he had lost?

And here is the message from Burnham’s main rival, Robert Kenyon, the Reform UK candidate.

This photo was taken on the day I decided to stand in Makerfield.

I am confident of a big vote for Reform tonight. Thank you to everyone who placed their faith in me.

From changing boilers to changing politics, this is something I will never forget!

Labour has just released this statement from Lucy Powell, the party’s deputy leader (and a friend and supporter of Andy Burnham’s), about the campaign. She said:

Our great candidate, Andy Burnham, and our fantastic Labour team have run a positive campaign focused on the people of the Makerfield constituency.

We knew this would be a tough fight, given Reform did so well here just a few weeks ago, but the Labour movement came together to show we are well up for that fight. While it will be some hours before we know the result, I want to say a huge thank you to the hundreds and hundreds of activists and volunteers who have helped with this campaign. Together, we’ve spoken to a record number of residents and shared our Labour message of hope and optimism.

Labour will continue working every day for the people of this country, putting our values into action and delivering the fairer future communities want to see.

It is hard to read much into this, but if the party was expecting to lose, there would be rather more about the “tough fight” in the statement.

The line about speaking to a “record number of residents” is no idle boast. Earlier my colleague Jessica Elgot posted these about the campaign effort today.

Never seen anything like this as a Labour ground operation. 120 contacts a minute, three campaign centres, 3000 activists.

At 6.30pm, two activists told me there is “no one left to knock.”

Three economic heavyweights have been brought in to advise Andy Burnham as he attempts to reassure the markets before his possible return to parliament on Friday and challenge to Keir Starmer, Rowena Mason reports.

Burnham is understood to be getting advice from Andy Haldane, a former Bank of England chief economist, as well as Richard Hughes, a former chair of the Office for Budget Responsibility and Jim O’Neill, a crossbench peer and former Treasury minister who worked on George Osborne’s Northern Powerhouse.

Good evening, and welcome to the Guardian’s Makerfield byelection live blog. The polls have just closed and we may have to wait until around dawn (quite early in the summer, of course) until we get a result. But, as the votes are counted, it should become clear well before then who is going to win. Andy Burnham, the Labour former cabinet minister, current mayor of Greater Manchester, and potential future prime minister, is widely expected to be the new MP, but at this point no one knows for sure.

Here is our latest story about what has been happening today, and what may unfold in the hours to come.

This byelection has been widely described as the most consequential byelection in British history. That’s probably an over-statement, but more on that later. Nevertheless, it is definitely one for the history books, because it is expected to lead to the replacement of Keir Starmer as PM.

During the night we will get the result; ultimately democratic politics is all about numbers, and these numbers really will matter. In his Spectator cover story, Tim Shipman has a good explanation as to why.

At the time of going to print, Op Makerfield is not a totally done deal. Two of Burnham’s top team parrot the same line: ‘It’s closer than you think.’ But those advising the Manchester mayor think the scale of any win will determine the speed of events. ‘If he wins by low single digits, Keir Starmer digs in and says: “You can’t come for me until after the Manchester mayoral election on 30 July,” and it’s bloody trench warfare,’ one says. ‘If it’s a comfortable, single-digits win, the soft left will try to take power through a conversation, but they will probably discover that power has to be taken by force. If Andy gets more than Reform plus Restore combined, start the clock. There will be an avalanche.’

Voting figures are very specific but, as for what happens next, there is a lot less clarity. Overnight, and during Friday, we might get a slightly clearer idea, but it is quite possible that by this time tomorrow there will still be considerable uncertainty as to how a Burnham/Starmer power struggle may unfold. Pippa Crerar had a superb account of the state of play in her Guardian splash this morning.

Of course, it is possible Reform UK could win. That would also lead to immense turmoil for Labour – with less prospect of a positive resolution for the party.

Although we will be focusing on Makerfield, there are two other byelections tonight, in Aberdeen South, and Arbroath and Broughty Ferry. We will be covering those too.

At 11.10pm the BBC will be launching its byelection programme, hosted by Laura Kuenssberg. As for when the results will come, we’ve been told around 1.30am for Aberdeen South, around 3am to 4am for Makerfield and around the same for Arbroath and Broughty Ferry. But these estimates are never very reliable.

We hope to turn comments on in the morning. Overnight, if you want to flag something up urgently, it is best to use social media. You can reach me on Bluesky at @andrewsparrowgdn.bsky.social. The Guardian has given up posting from its official accounts on X, but individual Guardian journalists are there, I still have my account, and if you message me there at @AndrewSparrow, I will see it and respond if necessary.

I find it very helpful when readers point out mistakes, even minor typos. No error is too small to correct. And I find your questions very interesting too. I can’t promise to reply to them all, but I will try to reply to as many as I can, either BTL or sometimes in the blog.