Labour set to retain Greater Manchester's £3bn mayoralty
Voting is underway to replace Prime Minister Andy Burnham as mayor of Greater Manchester, with Labour favoured to retain control of a £3bn budget that steers the UK’s fastest-growing regional economy.
Voting has opened in the Greater Manchester mayoral byelection, with more than two million people eligible to choose Andy Burnham’s successor. Labour’s candidate, Manchester city council leader Bev Craig, is widely expected to win comfortably after Burnham won a parliamentary seat on 18 June and became prime minister.
The outcome determines who controls England’s most powerful combined authority outside London. The mayor commands a £3 billion annual budget and holds strategic powers over housing, health, policing and transport in a city-region that has outpaced the rest of the UK economically over the past decade. A Labour victory would effectively guarantee policy continuity for local businesses and regional investors.
Despite its economic weight, the vote has been largely overshadowed by Burnham’s rapid move to Downing Street. A poll by More in Common this week gave Craig a 20-point lead over Reform UK’s Sian Astley, with the Greens on 14 points and the Conservatives trailing narrowly behind.
For Reform UK, anything short of a strong second place would be a significant setback. The party won more than 100 council seats in the region in May, sweeping formerly solid Labour areas like Wigan and Tameside. However, a senior Labour figure said the party expected to do much better in these areas now, having won back voters who backed Reform only two months ago in what many saw as a protest vote against Keir Starmer.
The supplementary voting system further entrenches Labour’s advantage. If no candidate secures 50 percent, second preferences are counted. The More in Common survey suggested Craig is the preferred second choice for most Green and a sizeable chunk of Conservative voters, a dynamic that could extend her lead to 30 points if Reform finishes runner-up.
The Greens, who secured 7 percent of the vote in the 2024 mayoral race, are seeking to at least double their share to prove their appeal extends beyond their urban-liberal base. Both the Greens and Reform UK are using Friday’s result as a benchmark for the 2027 local elections, when a third of council seats across the region’s ten boroughs are contested.
Turnout could complicate these calculations. Campaigners report low public awareness, partly due to the sheer cost of campaigning across such a vast electorate and voter fatigue after three elections in five months. Turnout is expected to fall below the 32 percent recorded in 2024, though the ballots of even a third of registered voters would still represent a mandate of roughly 600,000 people.
