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Reform UK gloomy about prospects in Makerfield, as one party source says Labour ahead by 2,500 votes
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.
Key events
SNP concedes Aberdeen South with Scottish Conservatives set to win
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.
Reform UK ‘very happy’ to come a strong second in Makerfield, says Sarah Pochin
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.
Reform UK gloomy about prospects in Makerfield, as one party source says Labour ahead by 2,500 votes
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.
The SNP have conceded defeat in Aberdeen South with a senior source saying it is the “Tories’ night”, but pledging to “win it back in 2029”, the Press Association reports.
Turnout in Aberdeen South 31.4% – down almost 30 points from general election
And here is the turnout from the Aberdeen South byelection. It was was 31.36% – down from 57.9% at the 2024 general election.
According to the BBC’s James Cook, in Aberdeen South “both sides seem pretty certain that the Tories have won this seat.”
Cook says:
There are lots of glum Scottish National Party faces at the Aberdeen South count and plenty of Conservative smiles.
The SNP candidate, Richard Thomson, looks particularly disconsolate.
If victory for the Conservative candidate, Douglas Lumsden, is confirmed, it will be a boost for the party’s UK leader, Kemi Badenoch who visited Aberdeen South three times, campaigning hard on a promise to support the flagging oil and gas industry, which is based here.
Turnout in Makerfield 58.75% – six points up on general election
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.
Nandy says Labour ‘cautiously optimistic’ about Makerfield, and Burnham beat expectations pulling back Reform voters
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.
Neither Labour or Reform camps were giving much away as counting got underway at the Edge convention centre in Wigan. A Reform spokesperson said it’s close while a senior Burnham aide said it was too early to tell, Josh Halliday and Hannah Al-Othman report.
Away from the official lines, Burnham supporters had been increasingly confident of victory and one of his team has just told reporters they were “really really pleased” with the campaign.
The Burnham aide said his team had knocked every single door in constituency in a week and a half and gone to every one seven times across the five week contest.
He said Burnham appeared to have a “significant lead” among women, in part no doubt due to the offensive remarks about women posted by Reform UK candidate Rob Kenyon in recent years.
And he said it was not clear yet how well Restore Britain would fare. Polls predicted the hardline rightwing party would win about 7% of the vote, which could be enough to split the rightwing vote in favour of Burnham.
The Makerfield turnout is reportedly very high. Sky News has said it could be 60%, and the BBC has said it could be between 60% and 65%. At the general election it was just 52.5%.
Prof Sir John Curtice, the BBC’s lead elections expert, said that the last time byelection turnout was higher than at the proceeding general election was at the Glasgow Hillhead byelection in 1982. But he also said that if the turnout ended up 11 percentage points higher than at the general election, this would be the first time that had happened since the Torrington byelection in 1958. That was a win for the Liberal candidate, Mark Bonham Carter, in a seat that had previously been held by a National Liberal/Conservative.
SNP reportedly worried they could lose Aberdeen South to Tories
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.
On the BBC’s election programme, Jess Phillips, the former safeguarding minister, said her ideal outcome from Makerfield would be for Andy Burnham to win and for Keir Starmer to be given the chance to make a “dignified” exit. She said she did not want to see “chaos”, with lots of ministers resigning.
Phillips resigned as a minister last month saying she wanted Starmer to quit.
Reform UK’s Sarah Pochin defends video urging England team to ‘keep winning’ to stop domestic violence escalating
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”.
Council officials in Makerfield say they expect the result around 3am, my colleague Josh Halliday, who’s at the count, tells me.
Here are some more pictures from the count venue.
