Burnham backed to beat ‘toxic’ Reform in ‘high-stakes’ by-election

The Transport Secretary has thrown her support behind Andy Burnham in the make-or-break by-election for the Labour party in Makerfield.

Metro talked to Heidi Alexander in sunny Brighton, where the Transport Secretary revealed the first train covered in the Great British Railways branding, a publicly owned rail company on track to launch next year with train services under one roof.

As the first of its kind red, white and blue-covered train trundled up to the platform, there was one elephant in the living room – the crushing local election loss for the Labour party two weeks ago.

It sparked a crisis with calls for Sir Keir Starmer to quit, Wes Streeting’s resignation, and, as the grand finale, Burnham standing in the by-election. His victory could pave the way for a leadership challenge.

The Transport Secretary admitted that the local election victory was ‘tough’ for her party.

She told Metro: ‘I’ll be heading up to Makerfield to knock on doors with him to make sure we defeat Reform in that by-election contest.

‘Because we’ve got to win this by-election and there’s a lot at stake. He will have my support in that election.’

Ms Alexander, who is considered a Starmer ally, accused Reform of sowing division in the country.

She said: ‘The politics that Reform stands for, in terms of creating division in communities, some pretty toxic things that some of their candidates have said in the past. The country deserves better.’

When asked about Burnham’s chances of winning, she said: ‘We are fighting for every vote in Makerfield at the moment.

‘The results of the local elections across the country were very tough for the party.

‘He has been a great mayor of Greater Manchester. He’s delivered real improvements to the lives of people in that region. And it is where he grew up and his children went to school. I think people like a local candidate, a local lad.’

But she said that there is ‘no leadership challenge at the moment’ when asked about transport priorities a possible future new Labour prime minister should have.

Reaction to the new train branding

While the Labour civil war has been raging, work has been going on to unveil the Great British Railways (GBR) train and bring another operator into public ownership, Govia Thameslink, one of the UK’s biggest rail firms due to be renationalised next week.

The branding, featuring the double arrow rail symbol and a Union Jack colours, has sparked intense debate online, with people at loggerheads about the look.

Ivan Katlianik said on X: ‘That is ugly and impractical. Especially given that carriages are connected in random directions.’

Chris Date said he thought the branding looked like ‘the Union Flag, Network SouthEast, Transpennine Express and GB News had a foursome.’

But the Transport Secretary insisted that the GBR branding has been a success.

She continued: ‘When we launched the branding in December and gave people that sneak preview of what it will look like, and when I spoke with members of the public they said it looks clean, fresh and modern.

‘We have a little bit of a Union Jack, but it’s not plastered all over the train.

‘This is about unifying the rail network. We’ve had 14 train operators all with different branding previously. When people have tried to book tickets they’ve had to go to different websites. We want to make it simpler.’

Concerns have been raised about how much money will be poured into the branding and new livery on trains.

Ms Alexander said the new wrapping on the first train didn’t cost anything to the taxpayer because it was paid for by the Rolling Stock Company, the body which owns and will continue to own all of the train carriages and lease them to the government.

‘This is a four car train. If you were doing a ten-car train, that could cost up to £100,000,’ she said.

‘That is why we are going to roll out the branding in an incremental way, because I don’t think the public will thank me if I say I was going to spend hundreds of millions of pounds on branding. They might ask “why don’t you recruit more drivers so that we have got train crew availability and we’re not going to see so many cancellations and delays.”

‘My absolutely focus is on getting the basics right. This is about running the rail services in the interests of the passenger, not private shareholders.

‘The privatisation model failed, we know that. This is about a new future where people can be proud of the railways.’

Get in touch with our news team by emailing us at webnews@metro.co.uk.

For more stories like this, check our news page.