Reform UK fields plumber Robert Kenyon for Makerfield by-election

Reform UK has turned again to Robert Kenyon, the self-employed plumber who finished second in Makerfield last year, in a by-election now framed as a test of whether the party’s brand can do what its candidate could not. Josh Simons vacated the seat on 18 May 2026, and Parliament now lists Makerfield as vacant with the contest pending.

The numbers from the 4 July 2024 general election explain why the seat has become so closely watched. Simons won 18,202 votes, or 45.2%, to Kenyon’s 12,803, or 31.8%, leaving Labour with a majority of 5,399. Turnout was about 52.5% in an electorate of 76,641. On paper, that remains a Labour seat. In practice, Reform’s strong second place has made Makerfield a prominent test of how far protest voting can stretch in a post-industrial constituency when the same party brand is on the ballot twice.

Makerfield itself was created for the 2024 boundary set, but the political inheritance is older. Labour has held the area since the constituency’s creation in 1983, and Simons represented the current version of the seat from 4 July 2024 until his departure this month. That history gives Reform a clear target: not just to repeat its 2024 showing, but to prove that its coalition can move beyond opposition and into capture.

Kenyon enters the race with more local ground under his feet than he had a year ago. He was elected to Wigan Council on 7 May 2026 in Bryn with Ashton-in-Makerfield North, giving him a municipal base in the same wider political terrain. Reform has also sought to widen his profile beyond plumbing, describing him as a former army reservist and a specialist technician for the NHS in Lancashire.

Nigel Farage has cast the contest in theatrical terms, calling it a David versus Goliath battle and describing Kenyon as the “plucky plumber” taking on Andy Burnham. That framing matters because Makerfield is now about more than one local candidate. It is a measure of whether Reform’s national identity, not just Kenyon’s profile, can pull together enough voters in a constituency where Labour’s long hold has already been broken once in all but name by the size of Reform’s advance.

With the seat vacant and the by-election still pending, the central question is no longer whether Reform can compete in Makerfield. It already has. The question now is whether it can turn a warning shot into a parliamentary gain.