For the third time in two years, voters in the North West of England will go to the polls in a parliamentary by-election. First, it was Runcorn and Helsby, a safe Labour seat narrowly taken by Reform, then, most recently, it was Gorton and Denton, a safe Labour seat taken by the Greens in a decisive victory. Now, thanks to Labour’s extreme internal factionalism, Makerfield becomes the region’s third by-election for parliament as the local residents get caught in the crossfire of the Labour civil war.
All is not straight-forward for the left, however. With Labour shifting ever further to the right, an intervention by Caroline Lucas has not gone down well with some. Her call for the party she formerly led to stand aside for Burnham to stop Reform is now, more than ever, a bitter pill to swallow. With Labour seemingly content to champion the continuity of the cost-of-living crisis through their inaction and arguably showing ambition to ape Nigel Farage, presumably in a meagre attempt to damage control their inevitable loss at the next general election, the time has never been more vital for the Green Party to step into the fray.
A bit of background
After devastating losses in this year’s local elections across England, losing the Senedd in Wales for the first time since 1999 and a further diminishing of the party in Scotland, Keir Starmer’s position as leader of the Labour Party has never looked weaker. The man who once ruled with an iron whip and silenced all opponents through suspensions and membership purges is now being hoisted on his own petard as once close allies turn on him. As of 15 May 2026, according to LabourList, nearly 100 MPs have called on the Prime Minister to resign his office and the Labour leadership.
Alongside former Health Secretary Wes Streeting and former deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner, the Labour Mayor for Greater Manchester, Andy Burnham, is seen as seeking to challenge Starmer for the leadership. Streeting has already announced his intention to stand in any leadership contest. To do that, however, he needs to be an MP, a hurdle he failed to clear earlier this year when Labour’s NEC blocked him from standing in the Gorton and Denton by-election.
Now, the former Labour MP for Makerfield, Josh Simons, has officially resigned in order to make way for Andy Burnham to stand and become an MP so he can challenge Starmer. Burnham has been given permission to stand down as Mayor of Greater Manchester and contest the seat.
Lucas’s intervention
Lucas, Britain’s first ever Green MP who held office from 2010 until 2024 when she stood down, and former leader of the party, intervened, saying on social media: “There are times when it’s more important to put country before party. This is one of them. Burnham’s longstanding commitment to a fairer voting system could transform our democracy and counter the dire threat of a Reform UK government.”
Of course, Lucas is talking sense and there is some logic to her perspective. During the 2019 general election, I briefly made the argument that the Greens should stand aside for Labour to help remove the Conservatives from power and was open to an electoral pact with the Liberal Democrats in 2017 to remove my local Conservative MP. In the event, neither of these things happened.
Her argument of putting the country before the party is one that resonates greatly with me. Putting the people and the country first has always affected my decisions and is why I left the Greens for Labour in 2020 and came back to the Green party this year. My duty is to the people and I’ll do what’s necessary to protect them, even if that means sidelining party politics.
It’s a different world now
However, the strength of her argument has waned as politics shed the norm. In 2020, Labour was still a formidable force, despite the previous election result, and still relatively left-wing, despite Corbyn’s resignation. But now, this is not the case.
Labour now looks to have shifted to the right, with policies that seemingly target the poor and vulnerable, not to mention the Immigration White Paper unveiled just over a year ago and that now infamous “island of strangers” remark by Starmer. . Despite membership support for a fairer voting system, the leadership refuses to implement one for UK elections. Burnham himself has even said he won’t back a fairer voting system without first holding a general election. On top of this their former heath secretary has links to private healthcare companies. Labour’s decision not to embargo arms sales to Israel has also proven unpopular with some, and their recent decision to water down new sanctions on Russian oil has opened them to sharp criticism from several other parties in Parliament. What is the point in standing aside for a party that on surface value appears to be moving further right?
This is why I feel the Green Party needs to stand in Makerfield. Voters don’t just deserve the chance to vote for a left-wing community champion, they need it. The Green Party stands for lowering bills, a fairer voting system and ending the government’s complicity in genocide to name but only a few things. Out of all political parties in the UK, the Greens are the ones who reject the establishment and put their local communities and people before party politics. They want to win so the people win, not their own pockets. That is why they are needed to stand.
If you’re worried about splitting the vote and letting Reform in, just remember, the Greens were able to beat Reform in the Labour safe seat of Gorton and Denton. Moreover, when some might say that you can barely tell the difference between Labour, Reform and the Conservatives, is it really wise to back them over the Greens as a tactical vote?
The upcoming by-election will give the voters of Makerfield the chance to elect a local community champion over more career politicians. Labour has shown it cannot be trusted, not even as a tactical vote anymore. Makerfield, as with all of the UK, needs a Green Party candidate to vote for and, thankfully, they’re in the process of selecting one.
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