All eyes will be on Makerfield today as local voters cast their ballots in the most important by-election in decades.
Labour mayor Andy Burnham is the favourite to win and looks set to use his return to Westminster to topple the Prime Minister.
Party insiders believe a Burnham victory will see Keir Starmer exit Downing Street and lead to the ‘King of the North’ replacing him.
But two Westminster by-elections are also taking place north of the border which could have profound consequences for Scottish politics.
The snap election in Arbroath and Broughty Ferry, triggered by the SNP’s Stephen Gethins election to Holyrood, is the more predictable of the two contests.
Gethins squeaked home in 2024 by 859 voters over a resurgent Labour, but Starmer’s party is in freefall and there is a strong expectation the SNP will hold the seat.
The race in Aberdeen South, by contrast, is likely to be tight and the result could reverberate across the UK.
Caused by the election of former SNP Westminster leader Stephen Flynn to Holyrood, party insiders worry a two-horse race with the Tories could be a photo finish.
On paper, the SNP is right to be worried.
By-elections are invariably held against an unfavourable political backdrop for governments, but the circumstances facing the SNP are wild.
Former SNP chief executive Peter Murrell recently pled guilty to embezzling over £400,00 party funds – much of it from pro-independence supporters – and he is facing jail.
Admitting your party was led for twelve years by a conman is not the ideal context for the SNP and its candidate Richard Thomson to motivate the core vote.
The SNP’s confusing position on the region’s struggling oil and gas industry – the top economic issue in the election – is another handicap.
Thomson and Flynn are staunchly in favour of measures to boost the ailing sector and John Swinney has softened on Nicola Sturgeon’s “presumption” against new developments.
But the SNP still has a carefully worded position on new drilling that has been exploited by rivals.
By-elections are no time for nuance and Swinney’s party could be punished by oil and gas workers – despite the issue of new drilling licenses being a reserved matter.
The Scottish Tories, whose candidate Douglas Lumsden has made the by-election a referendum on oil and gas, are quietly confident of a win.
They pushed Flynn close in the similar Aberdeen Deeside and North Kincardine seat at Holyrood on May 7th – and only fell short when Reform UK split the right wing vote.
And yet, the Tories are not without their problems in a by-election they should be winning.
Party leader Kemi Badenoch has committed a future Conservative Government to issuing new licenses for the North Sea and scrapping the EPL windfall tax on oil and gas profits.
The challenge is local voters will remember it was Tories who introduced the EPL – a super tax they now claim is destroying jobs.
Another obstacle is that the Tories remain the most toxic brand in Scottish politics.
Voters can agree with Badenoch on tax, oil and gas, or cutting government waste, but do a runner when the party name is mentioned.
Scots who ditched the Tories for Reform UK are also a stubborn bunch who remain angry with the previous Government for a series of sins.
It is not impossible to imagine Reform dividing the Right again and handing victory to the SNP.
Labour, meanwhile, are set for an annihilation in Aberdeen South.
Starmer’s party won a healthy 24.7% in the seat in 2024, but will be lucky to secure 5% today.
A combination of the Labour’s hostility to new oil and gas drilling and support for the EPL, as well as Starmer’s deep unpopularity, could see them losing their deposit.
Two factors are key to the outcome in this pivotal by-election.
One, will the SNP lose voters to the sofa after the Murrell scandal but pick up disaffected Labour supporters who loathe the Tories?
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Two, can the Conservatives persuade enough Reform backers to hold their nose and go back to their first love?
The result in Makerfield could shape the future of UK politics for the next decade.
But Aberdeen South may trigger a rethink on UK energy policy and send a message to a scandal-hit SNP.