The emphatic defeat suffered by Nigel Farage’s Reform party in Thursday’s Makerfield by-election laid bare political handicaps that threaten his ambition to reach 10 Downing Street.
Despite sweeping up all the seats on offer in the area’s local elections just six weeks ago, Reform sank to a heavier-than-expected defeat in the standalone parliamentary election. While the popularity of Labour’s Andy Burnham was key to that result, Reform’s Robert Kenyon was also hampered by old social media posts that were received as sexist and homophobic.?
A senior Reform official said the party had to recruit better candidates — what he called a need to professionalize. The vote also highlighted a gender gap resulting from a failure to appeal to women. A pre-election Survation poll showed women supported Burnham over Kenyon by 53% to 32%. Men, by contrast, preferred Kenyon to Burnham by a hefty margin.
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