Greater Manchester picks Andy Burnham's successor. Labour has won every mayor race.

What happened

The full candidate list for the 30 July Greater Manchester mayoral by-election is confirmed: seven names, with Labour’s Bev Craig and Reform UK’s Sian Astley the principals.

Andy Burnham won the Makerfield by-election on 18 June. The Greater Manchester mayor also holds the powers of a police and crime commissioner and cannot sit as an MP, so Burnham resigned as mayor on 19 June. That started a by-election for mayor on 30 July. The winner serves until the next regular mayoral election in May 2028.

Labour moved fast and named Bev Craig, leader of Manchester City Council since 2021, as its candidate on 23 June. Reform UK chose Sian Astley, a recently elected councillor for Baguley.

The Greens are running Geraldine Coggins, their group leader in Trafford. The Conservatives are running Phil Eckersley, Trafford deputy leader, and the Liberal Democrats Richard Kilpatrick, a councillor for Didsbury West. Marlon West of Restore Britain completes the list.

This vote goes back to the supplementary vote system. Voters mark a first and a second choice. If no candidate gets more than 50% of first choices, the top two go to a second count, where second choices are added. Every earlier Greater Manchester mayoral election except 2024 used this system, and in all three Burnham won on first choices alone.

Sources: Manchester City Council, House of Commons Library, LabourList, Greater Manchester Combined Authority

The Pattern

Labour has won all three Greater Manchester mayor races. Each win was big, and each one was Andy Burnham’s. We also show two recent by-elections in the North West, Runcorn in 2025 and Makerfield in 2026. They show what can happen to large Labour majorities when few people vote and Reform voters turn out.

The Read

History favours Bev Craig. Greater Manchester has always voted Labour for mayor, each time by 26 points or more. Craig has run Manchester City Council for five years and is known in the region’s biggest borough, and Labour picked her within four days of the vacancy. Burnham himself kept Makerfield by 20 points, in far worse conditions for Labour than a mayoral race, and his quiet backing should pass more easily to a successor as mayor than to a Westminster candidate. The second-choice system also helps the leader, because Green and Liberal Democrat second choices have usually gone to Labour, not Reform.

The weak point is that Burnham is not on the ballot, and a July by-election is decided by who turns out. In Runcorn, Reform overturned a Labour majority of 14,696 votes when Labour voters stayed home. In Makerfield, Reform reached 34.5% even against the most popular Labour politician in Britain. Every past Labour win here was Burnham’s, so the record has never shown whether these voters belong to the party or to the man. No candidate looks likely to win more than half of first choices, so the second count matters more here than in any earlier Manchester race.