O n the face of it, Burnley should be one of the dullest contests in the general election. Keir Starmer’s party is sailing to victory in the Lancashire town described as Labour’s most winnable seat, according to the polls. One forecast has given Labour a 94% chance of winning.
Another predicts a 1997-style majority , replacing another brick in its red wall. On this basis, Antony Higginbotham, Burnley’s first Conservative MP in a century, may as well bin the leaflets and head straight to the jobcentre. And yet, a series of confounding factors – ranging from the Pennines to Palestine – mean Labour’s path to victory is far less straightforward than the polls suggest.
One potentially significant moment in the battle for Burnley took place behind a veil of intrigue last Thursday night. It was a meeting of the town’s Muslim community leaders to choose the candidate they will back for the general election. The prize? As many as 11,000 votes that would mostly have gone to Labour.
Only one of the eight prospective MPs was invited: Gordon Birtwistle, the avuncular 80-year-old Liberal Democrat. A well-known and longserving town councillor who represented Burnley for five years in parliament until 2015, Birtwistle addressed the room of about 300 people before formally winning the group’s backing. The 50/1 outsider now believes he could win.
“I think I can,” he said over a pot of tea in Mooch Cafe87 in the market town of Padiham, three miles west of Burnley. “Labour .