Makerfield By-Election Odds: Restore Britain on the Charge!

Andy Burnham has found his potential route back to Westminster via Makerfield but the path will not be easy and it might not be the straight Labour vs Reform UK fight that we all thought late last week.

Could a third party make a serious run and pull off the shock of all shocks to win a seat on the Green Benches for the first time? (Rupert Lowe is a sitting MP but won as a member of Reform UK) Let’s look at the latest Makerfield by-election Odds and see whether Restore Britain are really ones to watch…

You can bet on and check out the latest Makerfield By-Election Odds over on betfred.com

When the Betfred traders first uploaded the Makerfield by-election market last Thursday evening, Restore Britain weren’t even priced up.

They were put in afterwards at 50/1 and were backed into 33s relatively quickly. This morning their leader - former Southampton FC chairman Lowe - has announced that local businesswomen Rebecca Shepherd will contest the election for the party and the betting market purred with a flurry of activity that has seen their candidate move to just 9/1 to cause a political earthquake.

Restore Britain were founded in 2025 as a pressure group but moved to a political party in February of this year to take on Reform UK as the voice of the right-wing. They came into existence due to a dispute between the aforementioned Lowe and Nigel Farage and reading their policies, you could easily argue that they are even more right-wing than the party from which they splintered off from.

The announcement of 53-year-old Shepherd though has really gone down well with the Makerfield by-election betting market with more bets having been placed on Restore Britain to win this morning than all the other parties combined. Punters truly believe in their chances and clearly think the price on offer was just too tempting.

Victory in Makerfield would in all honesty be the biggest shock in modern day UK political history. With Lowe joining Shepherd on the campaign trail this week it is evident that they are going to really go for it and the person who’ll be happiest to see that will be Andy Burnham.

Every vote Restore Britain get will all but certainly be at the expense of Reform UK. Any member of the electorate pondering between the two aren’t really likely to be considering Labour (or any other parties).

Early polling from Survation seems to suggest that without Burnham on the ballot, Reform UK would win this one waltzing away but the Mayor of Greater Manchester does have a very clear and legitimate personal vote that makes it a toss-up within the margin of error. They also surveyed people in Gorton & Denton about how they voted in that by-election compared to how they would’ve had the so-called ‘King of the North’ been allowed to stand and the result could have been significantly different.

47% of the electorate voted Labour there in the last General Election but 65% of all respondents said they would’ve backed Burnham in the by-election. 19% of those who went for Reform UK would have voted for the potential next PM, with those who put their x for the Green Party also seeing a 19% percentage increase going to the former MP for Leigh, had he not been blocked by the Labour Party.

Many in the south and in the so-called ‘Westminster Bubble’ believe that Burnham’s popularity is overstated but all polling and personal experience from living here indicates otherwise. A significant number of people that don’t like Labour and wouldn’t vote for them in this current state would back the Mayor.

This by-election will be fascinating but if Restore Britain continue to campaign vigorously, all it will do is cement Burnham as the favourite and the person most likely to win the Makerfield by-election next month but maybe this grassroots movement has something about it.

We'll be keeping a close eye on this market but Restore Britain's move in has coincided with Reform UK out to 7/4, the biggest price yet with Labour sitting on 8/13.

For now though - I'm happy to stick with my initial prediction of Labour winning by between 1,500-3,000 votes should Burnham be confirmed as the candidate.