Reform Party Setbacks and Future Outlook

How do you unseat the Prime Minister? Well, after a storming win for Andy Burnham in Makerfield, that's the goal he and his team are plotting as he heads for Westminster Welcome to Political Fix from the Financial Times with me, Lucy Fisher. Onehead of a few days ahead of political manoeuvvering as the King of the North secured a seat in Parliament and is now sizing up Starmer's job Will the PM bow out gracefully, or do we have a bloody power battle to look forward to I'm joined in the studio by my FT colleague's political editor, George Parker. Hello George. Hello, Lucy. Ccolonnist and writer of the insideolitics newsletter, Stehven Bush. Hi, Steh Hi, Lucy And down the line for Manchester, we've got our Northern England correspondent Jem Williams How are you feeling this morning, Jent? haveave you had any sleep? I am surprisingly awake. I'm more awake than I was after Gorton and I'm more awake than I was after the local elections, so that's got to be a win. Great. And Stehven, you had a brilliant tactic for how to use the evening before the results. I went to the lature at Ronnie Scott's, which was wonderful because they've redecorated the upstairs recently. The food is very nice and when we watched the Pxophist, Emma Ravich and cosmic fusion and then got out exactly at the point then people were going, o we've now sampled the boxes and the results Look great. So you kind of you miss the sort of pointless bit we like o well, nothing's actually happened. You just get out having had a great evening of some jazz and the news has actually started to happen. It's all right for some state. Well, at the risk of one upmanship, I'll just add in that I was having dinner last night with the British Ambassador to Paris at his incredible residence in the sixteenth, which was previously owned by Napoleon's sister and still has her day bed and a silver champagne cup shaped to her breast. Anyway, I got up at five AM, got the first Euro star here. George, can you compete? ins? But you're been far too modest because Lucy was in Paris on the future Leaders's programe. No were were's s in Paris. And I should say she forwent. What was that word for Yeah For when For when? For went to meeting with the president of the Republic to come back and cover the Makerfield by elections. how How about that? dedication to Jy. It was actually This is incredibly embarrassing George, but just to clarify it was actually a visit to the Elyise rather than a meeting with Manu himself. Although we did get a brush by with Sebastian Le Coronneu The French Prime Minister on Thursday And just before anyone tweets me, writes in emails, I do not consider myself either young or a leader. but it is an excellent programme by the Franco British Council and it's been a lot of fun Jenn of course you were at the count, G us some color from it. Yeah, it was a few hours spent in the Edge Convention center in Wiggan. It was a kind of usual strange setup of there being probably more journalists than they were far more journalists than there were for journalists to talk to. so journalists ended up talking to each other. But you sort of got a sense very early on in the evenings that Labour were out doing what looked like as kind of traditional confident labour spendning operation, which they were not doing in the Gorton by election count. So you had Lisa Andy, the cabinet secretary and and Louise Hake who used to be the transport secretary and she's now essentially been running Andy Burnham's campaign, both of the Andy Burnham allies both kind of doing the rounds of broadcasters and also coming and talking to the kind of press C Reform effectively doing very little to none of that at all and no senior reform figures there whatsoever, candidate not visible. Rupert Low from Restore was there having some arguments with journalists, but I got the impression that was partly just because he felt like having an argument with some journalists And it was kind of very clear from early doors that labour were confident. and then in the course of the night, you know, they were just going from cautiously optimistic, which is, you know the code for we think we're okay to optimistic, which is just like' we it's a slam dunk. We're absolutely fine. And then Andy Burnham came in at about, I think about quarter three in the morning, had a huge heroess welcome. that was a massive press scum. You couldn't get anywhere. you know I couldn't The people that my colleagues who were following it in London probably had a much better sense of what Andy Burnham's arrival looked like because I couldn't get within a country r Let's get to talking about the actual results. I'll start with an admission actually inspired by you Stepen, because you're good at making predictions and putting your neck on the line and then coming back when you think sometimes you don't get things right. I thought before we saw the result that it didn't matter whether Burnham won by one vote or five thousand. and now that we've seen the margin By which he stormed Makerfield, nine thousand two hundred and thirty odd vote majority I think it does matter. It's so seismic that it makes a differe and adds to this sense of momentum that the Burnham Juggeral has. George, what's your take? Now we've seen the results Yeah, I agree with that. I thought this was all rather semantical whether it was a small majority or a large majority wins a win. but actually I totally agree with you there, Lucy. Besides the majority, the fact that he got more than fifty percent of the vote all the other parties put together The fact he didn't get in because the restore split the reform vote. It was a clean win. and shows real enthusiasm for his candidacy. It was a relatively high turn, I think about fifty eight percent for a by election And, you know, it has galvanized That sense You know, we've been talking to labour MPs and ministers. morning after the night before and a real sense that this is now an unstoppable Juggernauts and that Berham will be rolling into number ten in the coming weeks Jen, we've actually learnnt quite a bit about the shape of Burnham's leadership campaign for the party and how he would try and frame his Pmiership from his victory speech on Friday. And then of course, he's been speaking at a rally too on Friday morning, Give us the best lines. Yeah, I think, I mean it's funny actually because there were echoes in that victory speech of things that I'd heard him say ten years ago and he came here. There was a bit where he said it was a big wrench to leave the mayalty and I could remember him saying that it was a big wrench to leave Westminster but anyway, aside from that, he talked about, you know, one of the things that he's put front and center both in that speech and also where he did his rally later on is this idea of a M makeervld test So Anything that he is then going to do in governments needs to kind of pass muster among the people that who disposed to be Makerfield and in places like Makerfield. So you, the implication is, particularly the places where labour are under pressure or have been under pressure for reform. So then he sort of gets into you know some of the themes that he talked about during the campaign, like public control. you know, it's interesting because there is a kind of Brexit narrative in there, isn't there about to take back control about a sense of you know, we're going to reassert control over over your lives. There's a kind of left wing economic narrative in there about buying British about re industrialization, as you said, about public control So it's still quite viby as the campaign . There wasn't actually an awful lot in the campaign that you could say was like specific policy commitments. He's giving him quite himself quite a lot of space in that regard but you can definitely see where his pitch is going to be, where he's sort of trying to map out direction. Stephven, he was introduced for the morning rally by Louise Haig, who's had quite a striking glow up herself. She's ditched the bright red little mermaid style hair, which I have say I love for a more sort of muted look. She's obviously in line for a big job. Tell us about who you think are shaping up to be key members of a Burnham cabinet if he manages to clinch the keys to Downing Street Yeah, if as yeah, I think looks overwhelmingly likely now. Yet Lou Hee, you'd assume, Lucy Powell, who is currently Deputy Ler but does not have a portfolio role will almost certainly end up with a big job. I think if you were Andy Burnham, you'd be thinking of her for Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster because she did such a fantastic job of bringing relative stability and order to the Edmill the Band operation, both when she was in a staff job but also and then she came back later on when she was an MP. And then of course it's rumored that Lisa Andy will get a promotion, which will thrill the arts world because well, I guess it will thrill the arts world in a away, and then Lisa Andandy will no longer be culturure secretary, but I think will also cause them to go awayait she got a promotion And then the interesting question is what happens with West Streeting? Many MPs speculating that there won't be a full contest and then He will trade out for something or other because in addition to having to reward his own people, he needs to find space for others And then the big speculation is Ed Milliband as Chancellor replacing Rachel Reeves George, we've been having a lot of discussions about the pros and cons of Ed Milibaban, haven't we?cause in one sense, he's the most effective minister in the cabinet, whether or not onene likes his very ideologically driven green agenda He's obviously been leader of the opposition, thought about having the top job himself, how he'd run things wereere he in charge. There is a risk for Berham, isn't there that he could be overawed B milliband if he installed him in number eleven Yes, I mean the idea that he may be a bit too effective as a chancellor of the Exchquer. I mean, you're right. He's proved to be a very effective departmental minister. I was speaking to someone in the treasury who said, you know, if you were burn him if he gave the treasury to Ed Miliban, youore as is handing over your preremiership to Ed Miliban because he wouldd be so powerful. He'd have his own agenda. People in the treasury don't like his agenda, off course, they think he's a green wrecking ball. to the economy, but it would be interesting to see him in there P peopleople close to Edm Bante pololicy ideas and his view of the world align very closely to that of Andy Burnham, they'd be a perfect fit But I just get a bit of a sense talking to people around the Burnham camp maybe the tide is going out a bit on Ed Milliband as Chancellor, there people, you know, like Lord Nick Mcherson a former permnt secret at the Treasury who's very enthusiastic about him Milaban and said he's a really capable guy, intelligent, well up to the demands of the job Others who think, well, you know, will it be too risky And you know you hear talk about whether West Streising, for example, could be brought to as Chancellor or Shabana Mahmud, who would be bringing sort more of a blairite rice of center approach to the treasy which I'm sure will be highly welcomed by people in the city of London because it's going to tell us a lot about his direction, who he installs in that job. One of our colleagues was saying they got a message from a minister today. know it's all about whether it's the Jabanna, Josh Simons sort of faction that wins the day, or the Ed Milliban Miata Fambulla What do you make of that sort of sense of that dichotomy being at play which was a really interesting decision for burn him to have to makeate because If you are looking for a way to unite the party and to show that you wanted to bring this watch her Basically will stall a contest and just move straight to best bit, which is Ay Berhon walking into number ten from his point of view, then doing a deal with someone on the right or a party like West Streeting or Shana Mamou would be the ultimate signal It would also really cheese off, of course, many of your own natural supporters on the center left There are some people, for example, who think that Louise Hay who's been running the campaign I and make it feelie very close to Andy. whether she would like to Chancellor, whether you should have a woman in that role. It seems like Rachel Reeves think that Rachel Reeves should still carry on as chancellor. So but whatever decision he takes will be really important because We've had some borrowing figures this week which are really bad and indicate on the day of the election, just what a big school challenge Andy Burnham is going to face and the absolute You know, necessity whoever the Prime Minister is in a fewks time I' the Chancellor to reassure the bond markets that things aren't going to get out of control. I've written something with markets and economics colleagues that I think probably will have run by the time this goes out that's sort of talking about how his agenda is seen in the financial world. And what seemed to come back was the People have distinguished between Big expanding vibes that have come through in some of the things that Andy Bernham has said during the campaign, which just being pitched at various different audiences, not the city, but which are not actually hard and fast commitments. They're quite solft language, you know, I'm sympathetic to this, etcetera, et cetera. They've sort of distinguish between that and the things that are like so far actually commitments which are actually quite small beer, like crossing business rates for the high street. seemed to be the case, though what wereried the more was the potential Edmill abundonant treasury That seemed to be the thing that was much more of a concern So I suspect that some of that has filtered into the thinking of some of the people around Andy Burnham That's interesting Be the UK's borrowing costs have climbed higher since Fridayss open, albeit in a fairly muted way and There are other Reasons that people have pointed to for that including the postponement of US Iran peace talks, which has fanned inflation worries. Stehen, there is this sense of skepticism in the city about Andy Burnnam noneteless, isn't Yeah, there is just kind of yeah, because of that rather witless remark he made about the bond markets when he said we'd need to get out being in hoc through them Which among other things made it sound like you didn't understand what the bond markets were. You ultimately, you can't get out of being in hoc to the people who lend you money, yeah. For obvious reasons, people who lend you money have an interest in when they're going to get it back I think In some ways, the skepticism towards him, you know, among traders, you know in the city partartly colored, of course, by the Ed Millibaband Association because yeah, I mean someone said to me other day they said But ye know Ed Miliban is the person who called us Predators. You remember the Predators versus prodroducers conference speech he gave as leader, which I think in terms of doing damage to that Labour Party's relationship with business, the damage from it really cannot be overstated And it does mean that if it is Ed Milliband, he starts with that huge degree of extra skecepticism some ways I think Ady Bonn's actually Very reminiscent of Gordon Brown in two thousand seven, right? where he's built this coalition in the Parliamentary Party Oh Disaffected people on the right of the party who've fallen out with the current leader People on the soft left and left who didn't particularly like the current leader to to begin with And no one's quite sure what version of him will emerge. At the end with Gordon, of course The version that emerged turned out to basically just be new labor minus the charisma Would Starmarism plus the chararisma do any better? I'm not really convinced But I think the big problem for Andy is that he does start with this notot distrust, but a level of anxiety about what he might do that I think Even a relatively small misstep at the beginning, I think would make lots of people go, o The fears we had when he said those bom that bomb market remark. We look great The question I get a lot from friends, family, people outside the politics bubble is, what can Andy Burnham actually do differently? Does he have a mandate to change things, George What do you think to that? And Do you think that Stehven is slightly underplaying the importance of personality? becausecause to my mind, The feel good factor of Burnham, the you know, vote for hope, vote for change. too my mind is a big part of what accounted for what was a pretty spectacular win in this by election Makerfield just weeks after reform swept all the council seats. Yeah I totally agree with that. I'm a big subscriber to the idea of hope being a really important part of politics and being able to project hope and optimism. And I spent a couple of days up in Makerfield as I know you did Lucy and Jen has spent many days up there. And the thing that's absent on the streets of Makerfield is hope and optimism about the future And someone who' able to come in and say We can change things. I think that's important and you can divide politicians up, can't you? the people who do project. Hope Boris Johnson could do it. Cameron could do it. Gordon Brown couldn't do it, Blair could and so forth So I think that's important. And know if you have someone who looks like they believe in what the labour government's done and can talk in a positive way about employment rights and cutting hospital waing ls But in the end, Andy Burnnham will be judged about whether he can flesh out what he means by this hope and optimism And the economic situation is very difficult And there's a danger for him that the people in Makerfield who thought they were getting change In a few months time, and we have to measure politics now in terms of months rather than years, wonder where the change is And then you end up with this really bad sort of accumulated anger that we've talked about before in the podcast where people become increasingly frustrated. Go back to your original point about whether you can do things differently to what's in the Labour mananifestor. Well, of course, if he deviates too far from what Labours promis to do. thenen of course the clama will be for a general election. I think you can probably find quite a lot of scope within parameters, the lab manifested to do some of the things that Jem was describing earlier from his Victory speech But know I think that you can get a certain way by looking like you're pointing in the right direction, looking like you're relatable to the kind of people you want to vote for you And talking about a labour message and some of the things Labour's already done In a way it looks like you actually believe it I mean, I think, Yeah, I don't want to underplay the importance of the Hopey changey stuff, not least because I think One of the things we have seen consistently in every by election in this Parliament. is that the broadly defined left remain vote desperately does want to stop Farage and Feragist candidates and will take any any permission essentially to do so, right? L Sarah Potchin, the only by election and reform have won thus far in this Parliament is in Runcorn, where Sarah Potchin was elected after Mike Canamesbury,our the previous labour MP had literally punched one of his voters, right? Yeah like the bar is so far down Yeah, like yeah, the bar is in New Zealand. It's that low to the ground, right? And I think merely having Andy make people feel better about themselves and better about the Labour Party does go a long way But they do have these very tight spending plans for twenty seven, twenty nine nine You can't hope your way out of Rachel Reeves plans to go into the next election, hiking taxes on her own voters. gen Yeah, it was just to Stepven's point about, you know the extent to which you've actually got the ability to make the change that the voters you've now led them to expect I think he talked at his rally this morning about I can't remember the exact phrase but the jest was, you know, we need you need to feel better off. L the issue is that you're not feeling well off enough And I sort have listened to it and I thought, how fast can you make that happen How quick is it possible for you to make people, not only in places like Make andfield, but all over the country feel genuinely better off when you're constrained by everything that you're constrained by, that Rachel Reeves is currently constrained by? And the electorate is so fluid, right So you that's one of the things that's kind have slightly caught reform unaware, perhaps, which is that you know those numbers for reform can kind of look as though they're kind of a completely new world where all of these people now vote forform A actuallyually the electorate is fickle at the moment. And the question is, you know how long does act Handy Burnham actually have to be able to produce something that meets the expectations of what he was saying in Meghonfield this morning I think it's a really good question. We'll come on to reform in a minute. Jen, let's just rewind a second. we're all talking about the inevitability as it almost seems in Westminster, from most MPs you talk to about Bernon becoming PM How does he get there? We know that his allies want him to be crowned Prime Minister without a messy contest that risks tearing the party apart Ostama so far has insisted that there needs to be a formal leadership contest triggered by someone getting eighty one nominations and making the move to start the race. and he insists he will fight. I'll stick my neck on the line and say, I don't think he'll fight if it comes to it. I think There may be a few more psychological hoops he needs to jump through to get there, but I think he will realise that the game is up. What do you think? and how do you see this weekend, the early part of the next week playing out in terms of the cabinet or other MPs trying to force Starmmer to bow out gracefully. Well I think Andy Berham for a long time has wanted, you know, essentially a coronation. He's wanted a situation where there is no contest So you know, if you listen to what Lisa Nundy was saying last night at the C, when I asked her, you know, how do you think how quickly you think these talks about a kind of A managed transition will kick off and she just said, Well, you know, prrime Misters usually reach out to winning by election candidates pretty much immediately, kind of heavily implying that you know from the get go there is going to be a conversation about how can we help you leave in a dignified way? I then went to bed and got up and heard Kis Ammer on the radio as I was making my cup of tea, saying like, yeah, not going anywhere So so far, that plan doesn't appear to have worked in the first few hours. You kind of have to assume if he is not dislodged, then further action is taken as it were and you know, you get cabinet resignations or you get the pressure piling ono him. It seems to me that winning in Makerfield As you said at the beginning, it wasn't just a small win. it was a win with fifty five percent of the vote in which he drove up turnout in which he kind of pulled off this victory that is really kind of quite unanswerable. I think Kz Dahar will essentially be trying to defy political gravity if he digs his heels in. I think the instinct there, which perhaps comes from a position of wounded pride, I don't know and a personal antipathy towards Andy Burnham is not to move, but it seems to me that he'll end up just having to. And the question is how undignified does that end up being I think that a really underappreciated dynamic of quite why the result in its scale matters so much is Most labour MPs D don't know Anddy Burnham that well, right He left in twenty seventeen A person who used to do his parliamentary outreach for him before he left, Steve Rubham also left to become mayor of Merseyside. fifty percent of the more than fifty percent of the parmingrer was lefted first time in twenty twenty four You add in the twenty seventeen and twenty ninetited States, we're basically looking around two thirds of the Parliamentary partarty is a post Andy Berham Parliamentary partarty The handful of ones in that that chunk who do know him knew him as a new labour spad and tend to be the people who are the most sort of My hands will fall off before I let that turncoat become Prime Minister, you know, that sort of kind of person Most of them are bit like, oh well yeah the polls say he's a winner and it seems allright. But when you wake up and you see like a result of the scale that we saw in Makerfield, you immediately as an MP do go Oh yeah, he's winner. I. ar willed again because the thing I'm really struck by is he's calling thoseads of his former advisors And he's clearly doing that thing he does where he when he doesn't like the advice he gets from the people in the room, he starts to kind of like shop around. And I think he's clearly shopping around for someomeone who will go, yeah, it's not over Fy on clearly hasn't found someone who's in a cirle who's willing to explicitly say, yeah, fight on. But I think it might take some kind of eruption from the cabinet midway through next week for him to go rather than him realizing overver the course of the weekend, wait a second. the game is up I agree with you and possibly need cabinet resignations. And I think he truly believes at this moment in time he will fight. You know we've had the briefing that there's a campaign website. there's donors being lined up apparently. There are two people in contention to be chair of his campaign, although no one around him appears to be able to name who even one of those is ort what do you think? Is he in this sort of the denial stage of grief? Yes, I think he probably is. I mean, there's going to be a conversation very soon if it hasn't happened already between Berham and the Prime Minister along the lines, Andy Burnham will say So we do this the easy way or the hard way Kiss I will say going to have a go if you think you're hard enough, essentially that is the conversation that will happen And then there'll be a lot of taking stock over the weekend. People in the Burnham camp think things will go rather quiet publicly over the weekend give space to the Prime Minister to draw the right conclusion, by which they mean he should agree a timetable for departure which will be sometime in September just ahead of the Labour Conerence in Liverpool his armor timee to cement his legacy to attend that EU UK summit, which has now been announced for july twenty second. so be able to say is put Brit back on an inexable path towards closeer relations with Europe and then an easy transition The thing that people close to Starmer in the cabinet are worried about and their right to be worried about, in my view is ministerial resignations beginning at the start of next week. And I think the Cabinet meeting on Tuesday will be a moment of truth Are people going to quit before then? spepeaking with someone who wasn in the cabinet who said, you'd be surprised how difficult it is to persuade people to give up their jobs and their salaries and their ministerial cars. And there's very much and after you sort of vibe at the moment, isn't there? I suspect once a few people go then you'll start to see the herd moving very quickly You know, the longer it goes before people start to move um I might think, well, hang on maybe I've got a chance. I don't think he does by thewise, I tend to agree with you Everyone else has already spoken A mood among MPs is really f bra, isn't it? I spoke to one labour MP who said that they attended West Streetings's drrinks party on Tuesday night only to see who else was there and to try and understand who the WS backers are. But as they were there, and they told me they spotted Al Kairnes, another potential leadership hopeful dawned on them, many other MPs might also be there just to sort of take the temperature and try and understand how big where is support So it feels that things feel very feeraile in the Parliamentary partarty. Just one quick one. this is a labour backat bench who just text to me. We have a choice of metaphors, don't we? See the writing on the wall, smell the coffee. Wales has more chance of winning the World Cup than he does of being PiM at Christmas. think it S speaks to be kind of moon around at a moment Jen, let's say hypetically Starmer does agree to a transition. There are those around Burnham who want more of a run up time for him to prepare for that first one hundred day sprint. What are you hearing on that from? Well, I think that's part of the thinking, isn't it? You know, if you can come up with some kind of managed timetable that means that Kiss armor goes in a dignified way, there's the kind of minimal damage bin fire to the labour reputation where everybody's fighting each other. But then the other reason to do it that way is to give Andy Burnham time to actually put together his policy agenda. And I think you know, as discussed, there isn't much in the way of sort of specific policy stuff from the campaign. And I think You can read the Bes on a few things, you can get it, you know we know the things that he's really kind of been genuinely interested in for a long time, for example, social care and you know, there was talk that Louise Casey, who is already running the government's social care long term social care review, kind of talking to him in the background. So you could sort of see something emerging around that But I mean, what does he think about defence? What does he think about the EU? How is he going to cut welfare? whichich he sort have said in very general terms in an interview with the weekend. Well you know what does that look like going to take some time, I would thought, to put together, as will a team, as will You know, what does the budget look like probably going to be pretty high up in the intay at the point that he gets Andnd So yeah, I can completely see why people around him Would ideally like a bit of a run up to have that time Youould talk about reform and what their loss means for them. It's the third by election in a row that they have lost. Stephven, you've written about how this is a serious setback for them. They've clearly got problems with candidate quality with restore on the far right eating into their vote and tactical voting on the left It's looking quite worrying for Farraage, do you think? Yeah, I think He speaks to the big problem that he has, which is obviously he is doing very, very well in local government elections But that is because broadly speaking, mostly in local government elections partly because the local government in this country has been so dened to power and It's social care responsibilities mean most people's soccial government can't do anything where it's just a free hit to kick the boss. They're winning loadser seats. But in every parliamentary election, even the one that they succeeded in Rcorn They've faced huge tactical voting. and in every other one, other than that, they've been successfully kept out by tactical voting Now, of course, Makefield was partly about Andy Burnham's popularity locally But we shouldn't underplay the fact that if at the next election the exit poll comes out and the reform number of seats is not, you know, not we're not talking about like one hundred. If the number is twenty Maker field is one of them, right? Like it is older, whiter more retirees, fewer graduates It is a It is the ideal set of circumstance of demographics for reform to take it. I think our my colleague Annena Gross looked it up and it's the twenty ninth reform targets seem based on the twenty twenty four results with Sw. Yeah They not only did not win it, they were smashed And the fact that broadly speaking, reform can't seem to find a candidate who would not be the first out of the door tour of the Wonka factory Yeah, is it like The fact that they still can't quite kill the Conservative partarty O that yes, they they killed them off in Makefield where the conservative vote share was deriserory, although partly some conservatives did clearly vote tactically to stop reform But you know, they can't really eradicate them in suburban London. They can't eradicate them hoy in Scotland. And if you are aforman, you can't And yeet, if you're reform and you're caught between, how do we defeat the Cervatives to our left and we've got this new party to our right How do you do both of those things without polarizing everyone to your left, including some conservative voters into going, well, we're just going to vote for whoever we think is viable to stop you And I think it just points to path to Downing Street being really quite hard to plot out at this point because people understand how our electoral system works. Yeah, the polls say they're fragmented but we're yet to have a properly fragmented result in an actual parliamentary election. And that would cause me all sorts of anxiety where I a reform politician. I just add a couple of things to that. One is that we saw in the course of this by election because of the emergence of Rore putting on a big fight in Makerfield. Nigjl Farage has been pulled onto that kind of nativist terrain. that he doesn't really want to go ont to. Second thing is that Nigel Farge always have been their biggest electoral asset It' basically been lying low for the last few weeks because of a parliamentary inquiry into that five million pound gift from a high based crypto investor that doesn't like to talk about very much. And the other thing which we were talking about earlier, L is was just this idea that with an insurgency Wh it's a political insurgency or a military one, you feed on icties and advancing all the time Putting the wind up the establishment and your opponents The moment that looks like it's slowing down or even going backwards or you've peeaked or whatever it is then the energy that feeds the insurgency dissipates And, you know, We may look back at the Makefield by election and think it was significant for two reasons, not just because provided country with its next prime minister but also at the moment when the reform insurertaincy starts to peter out and you speak to loads of conservative MPs and Labour MPs who say this could be a moment which helps me save my seat at the next election particularly if the Rore continues to build its support as well in the reform vote split. Jim, what about the counterfactual if reform had had a better less divisive candidate than Robert Kenyan. Early in the campaign, his Rxist, homophobic and violent posts on social media forums were drawn up. If they'd have had someone like say Zia Yusf their home affairs spokesperson running. might it have been a bit better for them I still think Andy Beren would won Mainly because he's Andy Burnham, but also because he ran the right campaign for Andy Burnham to win in Mgafield, frankly, regardless of who reform was sanding, I think It would be interesting to see the breakdown of the vote along gender lines to see whether or not those comments that were dug up that Robert Kennan had made previously online whether that has made a difference, but do I think that if reform had put up a different candidate Andy would have lost No, I don't. But that doesn't mean that there aren't lessons for other campaigns in there because reform are now going to have to work out who they stand in the Greater Manchester Mayor by election, which has to happen because Andy Berham iss going to be going back to Westminster. We also saw tactical voting come play, as you hinted at there, Stehen Restore fell slightly short of the higher opinion poll prediction of eight percent, I think just under seven percent Still, that is striking for a far right party in our electoral politics, isn't it Yeah, I mean, it's even accounting for the fact that there is an area where The BNP, u got I think four percent in twenty ten So it's that is almost a doubling Yeah, I think in some ways, it speaks to the warmer home British politics has become for expressing racist sentiment Yeah, I know I'm a bit of a stuck record on this, but Rupert Low, who is the leader of restoredist far right partarty and the MP for Great Yarmouth is only on the public Affairs commommittee Be the Conservative Party put him on there. like that is a shameful moment in the Conservative Party's history. It ought to be something and all of their spokespeople are continually haunted by and chase down The underperformance does speak to something though, which is that Carly the The perpetual issue of opinion polling is how do you avoidving too many politically motivated people in your sample and I think visibly the overstating of restore is in part, I think about the fact that we know there are lots of people who are very, very angry and like to fill out online polling. There are loads of people who are still quite dubious in the parties about the value of constituency polling B that They did all pretty consistently overstate reform and restore in this one. they do often tend to be a bit off And I think that's part of the story as well. But part of it is yeah, this deeply alarming mainstreaming and acceptability of outright racist remarks, inculcated and its growth facilitated by the Conservative Party Well talking to the Conservative Party, they had a very good night in Aberdeen, South George, didn't they, where we saw a fifteen percent swing away from the SMP to the Scottish Conservatives And important for Kemmy Baddenoock to be able to say that her party is still in play north of the border after they suffered an absolute dubbing in the Hollyroood elections last month and were forced into fifth place. Absolutely vital. And you could see from the expression on Kemy Badenoock's face, I think there alm was tears in her eyes at the victory celebration after Aberdeen South Rults. I mean, it's a storming victory. Conservatives. And helps can we be pay not to dispel the idea that Parties cease to exist in some parts of the United Kingdom, particularly Scotland and Wales, obviously And also I think the I think we have to T talk about it in the context of Aberdeen's south is the fact that it was forced on a very strong campaign by the Tories to revive the oil and gas industry in the North Sea basically to issue new licenses And there has to be a question, I think raised by Whatever happens next in Westminster politics is whether Ed Miliband is still the energy secretary and still pursuing this very tough policy against the u against new oil and gas drilling because that results shows Not just I think the sentiment locally, but also of a sense that that argument' being lost nationally as well Yeah, I mean it's obviously it's a great result for them. It's a particularly unfortunate result for the defeated SMP candidate who I realized has himself been about half of the conservative to SNP gains since twenty twenty one He was the defeated candidate when Harriet Cross was elected in The twenty twenty four general election is defeated again now, which is given there haven't been very many direct SMPictory loss. quite a non trivial chunk of them. However, we should, I think, also be clear that there are very few constituencies which are as favorable to the current consonservative parties A to their message and also it's a political ecosystem where are able to harvest votes Yeahah, unionions votes as these as a strong stop the SMP option And I still think the concern and the question mark over the Cervatives is are they becoming like the liibdems of the right, where they can do very well in some unusual parts of the country, but they just vanish in Middle England We've just got time left for stop picks. Jen, who are you buying or selling this week I am going to buy a figure that will be sort relatively unknown outside of political nerdy circles. Tom Whitney, who's the current transrport seecretary's SPad U I think he will probably end up going into number ten under any kind of Andy Burnham regime. He's one of the very few so called long marches around Andy Burnham and has worked for him both when Andy was in Westminster the first time round and also over a long period of time in the Greater Manchester Cbined Authority, although in a sort of civil servy role but one that I think did involve sort of political antennae because he was advising on policy So given that there are not that many people of that nature for Andy to draw upon. And I think Tom Britney is trusted and I think that, you know, he's got a long track record of being pretty astute when it comes to advising Berham. that is this week's pick Stephven I am gonna to sell Rachel Reeves Andy Burnham is going to be prrime Minister quite long. He wants to refresh the look of the government. That obviously means you change the Prime Minister and the Chancellor, who are the people who set the tone of the government. And also I have my one eye on the end of the year. and sometimes you've just got to go for the low hanging fruit. so I'm selling Rel. As a sort of side note of that, little has been written more should have been written about how disloyal she's been to Kirstara throughout this whole thing. When you consider how Kirstarmer stuck with her through some really bad self infliction mistakes at the Treasury, she's been virtually invisible over the last in terms of at least of coming out and supporting the Prime Minister. Yeah It' virtually invisible and doing these repeated sort of briefing just inssane policies that there is no way she thinks her a good idea. You control the re rent control. things is that you know, the whole kind of like, Ohh, I hear the next labor leader might be a bit mad. Well. I can be mad too. I mean it's just. It's actually it. I think there was a b British announcement today, which is echoing what Andy Bernan was to tal about three o'clock this morning. Anyway, I doay. And I've heard that Starmer is seething about it and too busy trying to cling ont to his premiership to do much briefing against her Stepven, I'm going also go for some low hanging fruit. I'm selling Nidal Farage. I see that UGov has charted his unfavorability disapproval ratings have ticked up from fifty nine percent over recent months to sixty five percent George, I think you and I have long been saying we think that Uh we would see peak reform someway midway through this parliamentary term and then it would deflate towards the general election. So I think While the stop is already falling, this is a good time to sell because I think it's going to fall further. Gorge who are youy or selling toe? Well, I'm going take a bit a gamble here, and I'm going to buy West Streacing Be I think most of us would have thought three or four weeks ago he'd blown it, you know, loved the local elections. he couldn't get his eighty one names for his and it just looked like a bit of a desperate figure But actually, since then, I think he's sort performed in a fairly creditible way. He made quite a good speech on the economy which showed he was thinking about things who seems a pitch to be Chancellor in Andy Berham Gvernment. I wonder whether There will be a deal between Burnham and Streeting try to circumvent the need for a leadership contest in which att West Streston gets a decent job in a Burnham cabinet And it's quite interesting to note that when you talk to people in the streetings team, they point out and so do the Burn' people that they get on very well together. I think it'd be interesting to see that him How he so I'm going to buy West Street in this week. Well, there's a lot going on. so next week we are back with two episodes. We'll have a show on Tuesday and then a live webinar for FT suubbscribers on the Thursday. I think George and Stephen, you're both involved in that So if you have questions that you want to put to us, then do submit them in advance. You can register to take part in that at ft dot com forward slash anniversary and I'll put that in the show notes But for now, Jen, Stehven, and George, thanks for joining Thanks Lucy. Thanks, Lucy. And that's it for this episode of the FT's Political Fix The show is presented by me, Lucy Fisher, and produced by Claire Williamson and Per' Love. Malmela Saragosa is the executive producer Original Music and Sound Engineering by Breen Turner. Broadcast engineers were Petroros Jum Passis and Andrew Gorjardis We'll meet again here on Tuesday