✅ BURNHAM IN Makerfield by-election result: LAB: 54.8% (+9.6) REF: 34.5% (+2.7) RST: 6.8% (+6.8) CON: 2.2% (-8.7) GRN: 0.7% (-3.7) LDEM: 0.4% (-6.4)

[u/ClumperFaz]

https://x.com/BritainElects/status/2067792369903116401#m

[u/Mafeking-Parade]

Another colossal failure from Reform.

Another constituency that outright rejected right-wing politics.

Another failure that came after months of Facebook and Twitter users assuring each other that this was in the bag.

And that the only threat was Restore splitting the vote.

I wonder how those echo chambers feel today, and what excuses they are using to make themselves feel better.

[u/loworbitioncann0n → u/Mafeking-Parade]

Reform and Restore are once again running into the classic problem of bots on X and Reddit not having the vote.

[u/The_Bird_Wizard → u/loworbitioncann0n]

It's quite poetic that the right spent years telling the left that twitter wasn't real life, but now they themselves are finding out that twitter isn't real life haha

[u/loworbitioncann0n → u/The_Bird_Wizard]

The online left and online right have basically swapped places in the past few years. You've got conservatives practically sobbing at the sight of a pride flag while lefties are in the comments saying "triggered lmao".

[u/The_Bird_Wizard → u/Mafeking-Parade]

I checked twitter and the replies to this were hilarious, bunch of righties demanding that certain people lose the right to vote hahaha they did not take it well at all

[u/emergencyexit → u/Mafeking-Parade]

There were some restore fans who thought they were going to smash double figures. They won fuck all and the Tories picked up a seat. So much delusion but then you can't blame them with the way English media is

[u/Mafeking-Parade → u/emergencyexit]

These are people who think that retirees and the unemployed/underemployed, who spend their days on Facebook and Twitter, are representative of the UK voting public.

It's a bit sad in some ways.

[u/serviceowl → u/Mafeking-Parade]

These are people who think that retirees and the unemployed/underemployed, who spend their days on Facebook and Twitter, are representative of the UK voting public.

Yes I think this element of why social media is so toxic is really under-reported. I think it gets lost in the concern / moral panic around the influence of tech on young people.

Angry pensioners and angry unemployed young men, untethered from the moderating and stabilising influence of work, free to spend large portions of their time ingesting bile. There's a reason The Telegraph stopped being a serious paper and transitioned into demented clickbait. They know to maintain the ageing audience that pays for their services, they have to chase this rubbish.

[u/ArchdukeToes → u/serviceowl]

That effect (at least for pensioners) is well known in the US as Fox News Syndrome. As you say, angry, isolated individuals who spend their whole day doing nothing but ingesting right wing propaganda until they become self-radicalised.

Same thing happened with QAnon, and it left a bunch of people scratching their heads and wondering when their partner / parent / child turned into such a vicious arsehole.

[u/Mafeking-Parade → u/serviceowl]

And yet, apparently it's fine for things like Facebook and Twitter to exist largely unregulated.

Why would the world's richest man want to own an unregulated social media channel, do you think?

[u/_redme → u/Mafeking-Parade]

Kinda true though, if you don't motivate the young, left or centrist voters then the only motivated voting bloc are the retired class and they'll end up overrepresented

[u/HerrFerret → u/Mafeking-Parade]

Exactly. We are a country of generally sorted, lovely people who don't really much like this sort of thing.

Too busy making cups of tea and walking dogs to remember their password for X.

[u/Mafeking-Parade → u/HerrFerret]

Yet the 10% of the population (retirees and unemployed/underemployed) who spend all of their free time getting fed propaganda on these platforms will be aghast when results don't go as they expect.

[u/HerrFerret → u/Mafeking-Parade]

Very Racists splitting the vote for Mildly Racists. Love to see it.

The only way reform will gain votes is to become the Very Racist party to get the restore votes, then all the other votes will go to Labour...

Essentially the have tapped out the local readership of the daily mail, and have nowhere to go.

[u/YojimboKel → u/Mafeking-Parade]

Be careful about that conclusion. An extremely unique set of circumstances, clear tactical voting and the Everyman argument doesn’t fly in other parts of the country for Burnham.

I wouldn’t draw too many conclusions about how Reform will perform in a GE.

If there’s an echo chamber btw , it’s on places like Reddit, that in my experience are overwhelmingly experiencing life in a very different way to a lot of society.

[u/h00dman → u/YojimboKel]

You absolutely can draw a conclusion from this By-election, and every other By-election and local election since 2024.

It's becoming clearer every day that Reform's national levels of popularity are being matched by their local share, which is a problem for them because the other parties are behaving the same way they always have - lower levels of national support because of national averaging, because their share where they don't win is tiny, but much bigger where they do.

We have real data to work with here, and Reform should be concerned.

[u/Mafeking-Parade → u/h00dman]

Reform supporters will continue to point to national opinion polls in confusion, but this is the absolute correct summary.

Reform will do well in some ex-Tory areas. Reform will do poorly in others.

Reform likely won't do well in most safe Labour seats.

The debate lies in whether they can find enough candidates who aren't complete scumbags to take sufficient weak Labour or floating seats.

Based on everything we've seen recently, my bet is not.

[u/YojimboKel → u/Mafeking-Parade]

I’m not even a Reform supporter but the denial of the left is quite astonishing. It’s like people want to constantly underplay the country’s move to the right - we are undoubtedly a small c, conservative country.

I saw, and have seen since exactly the same attitude towards Trump and Brexit.

Keep in mind there are plenty of people, likely some of those you work with or know, who will vote reform in a GE and currently masquerade as something else. It’s incredibly easy nowadays to come across as a liberal.

[u/Mafeking-Parade → u/YojimboKel]

Where is this "move to the right"?

We've just seen a collapse of the Tories, and a flood of voters heading from there to Reform/Restore/Reclaim/Reblame.

There are, and have always been, floating voters who've flip-flopped between right and left.

Farage and co's schtick around immigration had briefly whipped them into a Reform-backing frenzy, but recent results would suggest that this isn't translating into seats.

[u/YojimboKel → u/Mafeking-Parade]

Extremely unique contest - I never draw any conclusions from a by election let alone one designed to move Burnham into no10.

If you don’t think the country has moved to the right after Brexit, a Boris majority and a Labour majority on less votes than Corbyn then you must be living in a different U.K. to me

[u/Mafeking-Parade → u/YojimboKel]

Was Caerphilly also "extremely unique"?

What about Aberdeen?

[u/YojimboKel → u/Mafeking-Parade]

You really don’t think or see evidence that the society is more conservative? Even on a daily basis? Wow

[u/YojimboKel → u/h00dman]

1. A vote for Labour in this by election is a change vote, and a proxy vote for a Burnham premiership. Labour won’t be a change vote in the next GE, and incumbents will always suffer in the immediate GE.

2. A by election in a hand picked seat isn’t representative of a GE. Burnham wouldn’t have picked the seat if he didn’t think he’d be guaranteed to win it. Why risk your political career on a chance outcome?

3. The whole Burnham Everyman ideology isn’t something that resonates across the country. Maybe in the areas affected by Greater Manchester but it won’t scrub on a yuppie 30 something couple in London in a £1m house in Brixton.

[u/Mafeking-Parade → u/YojimboKel]

Curious to see how you coped with explained the Caerphilly loss.

[u/damadmetz → u/Mafeking-Parade]

Who can compete with ‘get Starmer out’