A VOTE for Andy Burnham in Makerfield on Thursday is the only realistic path to defeating Reform.

That makes it the responsible socialist choice. Even since the by-election was called, racist riots in Southampton and a vicious pogrom in Belfast, incited by right-wing leaders here and by their puppet-masters in the United States, have reminded us how real is the menace of the far right in Britain, how important it is to deny it wins.

It is a mistake to see this realism as an alternative to developing a socialist fightback across the country.

As the Morning Star has previously made clear, support for Burnham does not imply support for Labour in general — the same tactical considerations informed our backing for the Greens in Gorton & Denton in the spring.

Nor does it mean a default “beat Reform” vote will always override the case for standing socialist candidates.

But the recent local elections should be sobering: independent socialists did well in some areas where they have built up a local record, but candidates for revolutionary or socialist parties generally received tiny votes. This held true even for Your Party’s official candidates, though it is much larger by membership than any of the Marxist left parties.

That doesn’t mean those campaigns were a waste of time — they can raise a party’s profile, influence political debate and play a role in recruitment. But where a far-right victory is a plausible outcome and every vote counts, it will not usually make sense to run socialists with no chance of winning.

Those who claim backing a Labour or Green candidate in such circumstances is a betrayal of class politics place too much stress on elections — yes, we need to build a militant socialist alternative, but standing in every possible contest is not essential to doing that.

How we do so must inform our approach to the second part of the “back Burnham” argument — that he is likely to trigger a swift leadership contest in the Labour Party.

Removing Keir Starmer from office is a prerequisite for any change of direction. That doesn’t mean electing Burnham guarantees one, but it does mean forcing a contest is a first step.

Affiliated unions should oppose Starmer’s desperate attempts to delay the inevitable. He calls on Burnham to defer any challenge if he wins, and focus on securing a Labour win in the Greater Manchester mayoral election that would follow.

This is terrible advice — Labour’s chances in Manchester are better if people can see an end in sight to Starmer’s premiership, while the offer of a Cabinet post in his dead-end administration is a sure-fire way to accelerate the slide in Burnham’s personal popularity.

Unions should press for a contest to be triggered quickly, but on a timescale that allows MPs time to gather support and participate in a real debate about the party’s future.

A lot of those MPs are hand-picked toadies of the Peter Mandelson set, admittedly. But real reform in Britain has never started at Westminster. It has always followed mass pressure from outside.

Our task in any leadership contest — and beyond — is to maximise support for socialist policies, winning endorsements for a socialist candidate if one emerges but also showing the scale of opposition across society to the whole Westminster consensus.

That means ensuring a huge turnout for the international conference against war this weekend. It means pressure on all candidates and MPs to reverse the repressive Palestine Action ban.

It also means a combative stance from unions — warning that a failure to set targets for pay restoration bringing real pay back up to pre-austerity levels, or to take public control of energy, transport, water and other basics, will provoke industrial resistance.

Stopping Reform in Makerfield is vital. But it secures nothing on its own. What we do afterwards makes all the difference.