Makerfield Voters Casting Ballots Today in By-Election That Could End Keir Starmer's Premiership

Since June 17, the Makerfield by-election has moved from anticipated event to live polling day. As of Thursday, June 18, more than 30 polling stations opened at 07:00 BST and are scheduled to close at 22:00, with results expected early Friday morning, according to BBC News.

Fourteen candidates are standing. The Labour and Co-operative Party candidate is Andy Burnham, the current Greater Manchester mayor and a former MP who held the neighboring Leigh seat from 1997 to 2017. Reform UK's candidate is Robert Kenyon. Rupert Lowe's new Restore Britain party is also fielding a candidate, alongside the Liberal Democrats' Jake Austin and a roster that includes Count Binface and the Official Monster Raving Loony Party.

Voters must present valid photo ID. According to BBC News, a passport, driving licence, bus pass, blue badge, or voter authority certificate all qualify. Expired IDs are accepted if the photo still resembles the holder. Photocopies are not.

The seat opened up when Labour MP Josh Simons resigned to create a vacancy for Burnham, according to The Guardian. UK prime ministers must sit in the House of Commons, and Burnham needs a Commons seat to challenge Starmer for the Labour leadership. The Guardian reports roughly 100 Labour MPs have publicly called on Starmer to resign, with more doing so privately. Labour performed terribly in May's elections for the devolved Scottish and Welsh parliaments and local government seats across England, and has consistently polled behind Reform UK nationally. If Burnham wins Thursday and launches a leadership bid, the UK could be on track for its seventh prime minister since 2017, according to The Guardian.

That's the scenario Burnham's supporters are counting on. Whether it constitutes democratic accountability or a palace coup dressed up as a by-election is a legitimate debate, but the mechanics are constitutional.

The more novel development heading into Thursday is the role of Restore Britain, formed by ex-football chairman and businessman Rupert Lowe, 68, following his public falling-out with Nigel Farage last year. According to Agence France-Presse, reporting via South China Morning Post, Elon Musk has been actively promoting Lowe on X and Restore's profile has climbed sharply on the back of that amplification and an uptick in anti-migrant demonstrations across Britain.

Lowe told AFP ahead of Thursday's vote: "We are bringing disaffected voters back to the voting booth."

The concern inside Reform UK is straightforward. If Restore pulls enough right-leaning votes in Makerfield, it hands Labour a cleaner win, undermines Reform's narrative of momentum, and gives Lowe's fledgling party an early credibility boost. Lowe is currently Restore's sole lawmaker in the 650-seat Commons, having become an MP in July 2024.

The strongest argument for taking Restore seriously is not fringe energy but structural. The UK's first-past-the-post system punishes vote-splitting brutally, and any faction that bleeds support from a competitor without winning seats itself still shapes outcomes. Critics of Musk's involvement argue that a foreign billionaire amplifying domestic political movements for ideological reasons is a legitimate governance concern regardless of whether Restore's actual platform has merit. That concern deserves a straight hearing.

The counter is also real. Musk promoting posts on X is legal, Lowe is a British citizen running a legal party, and voters deciding they prefer a harder line on immigration than Farage offers is democracy functioning normally. No evidence presented in these sources suggests Restore has done anything unlawful.

Pools close at 22:00 BST. The genuine unresolved question is not whether Burnham wins — most political observers expect him to — but the margin. A narrow win suggests Starmer might survive a leadership challenge by arguing Burnham lacks commanding authority. A comfortable win gives Burnham a mandate to move fast. The size of Restore Britain's vote share, compared against Reform's, will also be the first real electoral data point on whether Lowe's party has actual traction or is primarily an Elon Musk social media effect.