Tafi 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿🇬🇧

Hugh Grant has arrived at Labour’s Makerfield HQ to support Andy Burnham

If Vladimir Putin changed the voting system days before an election to stop his opponents winning, every British journalist would call it what it is: rigging the rules. Tonight, Labour rammed through a last‑minute switch in the Lords so that if Andy Burnham wins Makerfield and quits as Greater Manchester Mayor, his replacement won’t be chosen on a simple first‑past‑the‑post ballot, but on the supplementary vote system instead. Why now? Because Labour knows the race to replace Burnham would be a straight two‑horse fight with Reform UK – and under FPTP, the candidate with the most votes wins, no second chances, no back‑room redistributions, no “stop Reform” stitch‑ups. Under SV, Labour gets a second bite of the cherry: if their candidate can limp into the top two, they can hoover up second preferences from every other party and magic a “majority” on the second count, even if Reform tops the poll on first preferences. This isn’t “modernising democracy”. It’s the governing party using its Commons majority and the unelected Lords to hurriedly doctor the rules of one specific contest because it’s terrified the voters might choose someone else. When the establishment preached to the world about “rules‑based order”, they forgot to mention one thing: in Britain, the rules are “based” on whether Labour thinks it might lose.