ASHTON-IN-MAKERFIELD, England ¨C If Andy Burnham wins Thursday¡¯s election in Makerfield, the seat he needs to challenge Prime Minister Keir Starmer for the country¡¯s leadership, it may have less to do with his own appeal than the feuding of two populist parties splitting the right-wing vote.
The election is shaping up to be one of the most consequential one-off contests in modern British political history. The 77,000 voters who ?live in Makerfield, in northern England, could decide the identity of the prime minister governing almost 70 million people.
Opinion polls show Burnham, currently the governing Labour Party¡¯s mayor ?of Greater ?Manchester, could win because the populist right-wing vote is likely to be divided between two political parties led by two men who ?used to be colleagues before an acrimonious split last year.
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