By-elections offer voters a chance to rebuke Westminster and Holyrood

At Makerfield there should be little doubt that defending a majority of only 5,399 would ordinarily see Labour lose its seat to Reform UK. The reason Labour is the bookies’ favourite to hold on is due to the cause of it happening in the first place – finding a vehicle for Andy Burnham, Mayor of Greater Manchester, to return to the House of Commons and challenge Keir Starmer for the leadership of the Labour Party.

The ability to send Keir Starmer packing could provide the encouragement for voters to choose Burnham rather than evacuate from Labour to back Reform UK’s candidate, a local councillor and plumber.

So acute is Labour’s political crisis at Westminster that the voters taking either of these stepping stones could mean a new prime minister by October, but without a genuine mandate be it Burnham, or another like Wes Streeting or John Healey, now the former Defence Secretary.

The platform of Burnham, by far the most likely alternative, remains confused or unclear at best. Burnham has talked of wealth taxes derived from new levies on land, and provided contradictory statements on compensation for WASPI women or how to finance the rebuilding of our defences and reform structural welfare commitments.

Would Burnham want to borrow yet more money as well as raise taxes? The nervous bond markets want to know and would extract an extra premium on the cost – to be paid by our children and grandchildren and working through to interest rates now.

Then there are the persistent rumours that Burnham has cut a deal to make former leader, Ed Miliband Chancellor of the Exchequer. The probable acceleration of Miliband’s theological drive of Net Zero policies would be, like the past adoption of the ideology, have had little discussion and endorsement from the growing unemployed and families suffering impoverishment from it.

All of this has been brought into sharp focus by the disgraceful state of our country’s defences; hollowed out by the Conservatives while purporting to be making us secure and then faced by indecision and lack of commitment from Keir Starmer who will not change his Chancellor to find the money desperately needed to put our defences right.

The Prime Minister tells the public, tells Trump, tells the world that defence and security is the most important responsibility of any government – and he will be increasing government spending to match the challenge. He implies, such is his leadership and foresight, that he is setting an example for others to follow.

But the resignation of his Defence Secretary tells us Labour is an administration riddled with the woodworm of Starmer’s deceit; not just blatant falsehoods to international leaders, not just lies to parliament and the public – which we can do very little about it until there is a general election.

Likewise, in the two Scottish constituencies vacated by SNP MPs who have moved to Holyrood, we might normally expect the SNP to hold them both so soon after winning in similar but not exactly the same boundaries during the recent Holyrood election. Democratic politics is apt, however, to throw up unexpected challenges, and this time we have not only the pleas for help from the demonised oil and gas industry but the post-election arrival of the Peter Murrell scandal and what exactly Nicola Sturgeon and John Swinney knew about it. These factors could make a significant difference.

The by-elections in all seats are complicated to some degree by who the real opposition is; in Makerfield, just outside Wigan, it is clearly Reform UK but Rupert Lowe’s personal spoiler of Restore could yet distract a large enough vote share of those backing Reform the joy of preventing Burnham rescuing Labour.

In Scotland, Reform UK – arguably the only British party with a national reach – has already usurped the Conservatives who have become a shadow of their recent past. Yet voters have shown a willingness to give Tories another chance in seats where they have a history, such as Aberdeen South and to a much lesser extent, Arbroath & Broughty Ferry. The difficulty is that it was the Tories, particularly the administrations of May, Johnson and Sunak, who rushed to adopt Net Zero targets and the policies of de-industrialisation.

All three Conservative prime ministers began to put the thumbscrews on exploring and producing British hydrocarbon energy resources, be it onshore gas or the development of new offshore oil and gas fields. It was Sunak who introduced the “temporary” Energy Profits Levy taking Corporation tax to 75 per cent that was then extended and increased to 78.5 percent by Labour. These impoverishing policies were cheered on by the SNP, Liberal Democrats and Greens.

Only Reform UK has been consistent in opposing Net Zero and advocating a return to oil and gas production since its founding by Richard Tice and Nigel Farage in 2020. Scottish voters therefore face a dilemma of whether they can trust the Conservatives who were complicit these past sixteen years in the policies that have led to the job losses of 1,000 a week now taking place – or voting, often for the first time, for Reform.

My reasoning is simple, the only way to get change is to vote for change; voting for parties that have caused the damage in the hope they behave differently is, I believe, likely to be a fool’s errand.

Brian Monteith is a former member of the Scottish and European parliaments and editor of ThinkScotland.org