Farage issues plea to voters who backed Restore after Reform by-election loss

David Lynch, Press Association Political Correspondent

Reform UK Leader Nigel Farage said he was “disappointed” with the party’s vote share in the Makerfield by-election and urged people who voted for rival party Restore Britain to “think again”.

Reform’s candidate Robert Kenyon came second to Andy Burnham, who had a majority of 9,231 votes over his nearest opponent.

Mr Burnham’s vote share was also higher than the figure achieved by his predecessor Josh Simons at the 2024 general election, which was 45.2%.

More voters backed Labour candidate Mr Burnham in the poll than the combined number who voted for Mr Farage’s party and Restore Britain, a rival party to the right of Reform which has adopted a harder line on migration and other issues.

In a video messaged published on social media, Mr Farage said Reform had been “hoist with our own petard” after claiming Labour adopted his party’s message of “get Starmer out” on the doorstep by asking voters to support Mr Burnham.

In a plea to voters who backed rival outfit Restore Britain in the by-election, Mr Farage said: “As for the Reform vote share, well, I thought we would get 18,000 votes, we got just shy of 16,000 so I’m disappointed by that, no question about it.

“But I would say this: there’s a couple of thousand voters there who would normally have gone out and voted Reform that voted Restore, and I would say directly to them, what do you want?

“We are the challenger party to the left in this country, and I would urge you to think again. I really, really would.”

Mr Burnham won 54.8% of the votes cast, outperforming all the opinion polls published during the campaign, none of which placed him above 50%.

Reform candidate Mr Kenyon won 34.5% of the vote, while Restore Britain’s Rebecca Shepherd won 6.8%, which together come to 41.3%.

Mr Kenyon’s share of the vote represents Reform’s second best performance at a Westminster by-election to date, behind only the contest in Runcorn and Helsby in 2025, where his party got 38.7% – which was enough to win the seat from Labour.

Both Labour and Reform finished well ahead of all other parties in Makerfield.

Ms Shepherd was the only other candidate to get more than 5% of the votes cast – the threshold needed to avoid losing the £500 deposit that all candidates have to pay to stand for election to Parliament in the UK.

Despite big wins in council elections last month, and winning the second largest number of seats in the Welsh Parliament, Reform has now failed to win in three parliamentary by-elections over the last year.

The party came second to Plaid Cymru in the Caerphilly by-election for the Senedd in October, and also failed to win the Gorton and Denton by-election in February.