Greater Manchester’s sustained growth is a massive win for place-first consensus politics. Could Reform UK’s rise spoil the party?

Thirteen thousand Londoners a year cannot be wrong about the booming success story that is Greater Manchester.

That was the astonishing statistic cited as the number of people heading north from the capital annually in a recent Times interview with Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham.

While the piece mainly focused on the former Labour MP’s misalignment with some of the more radical welfare reform policies being put forward by Sir Keir Starmer’s government, it was also an opportunity to share some of what’s been working so well for England’s second city-region. 

So why do they come? For jobs, for a better quality of life, for affordable property, for culture, for the people, and for opportunities. For there are now far more opportunities than there ever were, including  work for new legions of civil servants.

This isn’t without its challenges. London money must be playing a part in inflating the property price bubble in parts of the city. The city centre is changing beyond recognition as shiny towers reach skywards like saplings in a forest struggling for light. But beyond the nostalgia for a place that was actually pretty grim at times, it’s one heck of a place right now.
So, how did we get here, and what’s next? 

Effervescent economist Christian Spence is one of those incredibly dynamic commentators who can mesmerise a crowd with even the dullest of data, and he did just that at an excellent economics update hosted by Pro-Manchester last week.

Of particular interest were slides showing Greater Manchester’s economic resilience in recent years. 

“Geography matters,” Spence said. “Post-covid growth rates are least damaged in the north of England. Greater Manchester has seen almost no post-covid contraction.

“The North South divide might be starting to show some signs of flipping.”

While Greater Manchester’s economic growth has largely been centred on Manchester and Salford, Spence says there are signs that it is spreading to other boroughs, including Bolton and Oldham.

And the secret of Greater Manchester’s success? Years of stability and cross-party political consensus for the most part, the recent Greater Manchester spatial strategy being a rare example otherwise (Stockport opted out before it was agreed, Oldham has been trying to wriggle out ever since).

Spence says that today’s Greater Manchester spatial plan is largely the same spatial plan that was agreed back in 1984, since then place-first political consensus has been driving regeneration.

But with politics in flux and a fourth party to contend with, Reform UK, it begs the question: Can the rise of Reform UK spoil the consensus in Greater Manchester?

“Yes, they can,” Spence suggests, pointing to some of the disruptive fallout of Trump’s second term in the United States, which has left business leaders scratching their heads over tariffs and investment decision. 

“Long term stability is all economists can talk about,” he adds. “Reform certainly runs the risk of some of that here.”

Whereas local Labour, Lib Dem and Conservative politicians have generally reached agreement on the things that are best for Greater Manchester, Reform UK remains a relatively unknown quantity.

There have been no local elections in Greater Manchester since Reform UK’s successes in the 2024 general election, but the party has picked up seats in two by-elections.

In a recent article, Manchester Evening News Politics writer Joseph Timan referenced a More In Common Poll that predicts that Reform UK would win just over half the parliamentary seats in Greater Manchester in the next general election. This includes every constituency in Bolton, Bury, Oldham and Wigan, as well as some in Rochdale and Tameside such as Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner's seat.

There is also evidence that Reform UK likes to stir things up in ways that might not sit well in a liberal and inclusive local economy like Greater Manchester, which has even set an early target of achieving net zero.

The next election for the Greater Manchester Mayor is scheduled to be held in May 2028, by which time Reform UK’s influence may have either consolidated or waned.

Local council elections could also change the makeup and leadership of the ten local authorities in Greater Manchester. Could consensus change to chaos?

With so much success behind us, and so much at stake in future, it will be interesting to see what happens next.