In your briefing today:

📣 Andy Burnham swept to victory in Mackerfield overnight, securing a huge win over Reform UK in the by-election brought about to secure the Manchester mayor’s return to Westminster.

Labour secured 55% of the vote, with Reform coming second with 35%. The hard-right Restore Britain party came a distant third on 7%, the Conservatives fourth on 2%.

In a victory speech that sounded as much like an opening pitch to become Prime Minister as a traditional statement of intent, Burnham told Labour it had a “final chance to change”.

“People here have voted for change,” he said. “They voted for more power for the north and everywhere forgotten by Westminster. They have voted for hope. Now let’s give that back to them.”

He is now expected to launch a leadership campaign in the coming days: his intended final destination, Downing Street.

📣 The Scottish Conservatives have won their first Westminster by-election in more than 50 years, taking Aberdeen South from the SNP. The seat - which had been held by former SNP Westminster leader Stephen Flynn - was won by Tory MSP Douglas Lumsden.

It was a stunning win for the Conservatives, who have invested heavily in the seat - their leader, Kemi Badenoch, had visited the campaign three times - and saw their vote up 25% on the 2024 General Election result. They secured 14,308 votes to the SNP’s 8,258, with Reform UK coming a distant third with 2,478.

In the night’s other Scottish byelection, the SNP comfortably hung on to Arbroath and Broughty Ferry, with the SNP securing 9,802 votes - more than double the total of the second-placed Conservatives, who were run close by Reform. (BBC)

📣 The United States has lifted its blockade of Iran as part of the peace deal between the two countries, with Iran’s supreme leader claiming the US struck the deal “out of desperation”. (BBC)

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📣 The Scottish Parliament is embroiled in a row over media access to politicians after officials erected a pen for journalists, in an attempt to restrict access to MSPs. (Times)

📣 Scottish gang boss Steven Lyons has lost his attempt to prevent extradition to Spain to face charges relating to drug trafficking and money laundering. (STV)

📣 Crofters are locked in a battle with a golf club which wants to revoke their ancient rights to graze their cattle and sheep on the course. (Mail)

📣 MP’s are urging Fujitsu to make “immediate” compensation payments to victims of its faulty Horizon Post Office systems. (Guardian)

📣 Hundreds of children have been rescued after a Tokyo school was engulfed in flames. (Independent)

📣 An amber heat alert will come into force for parts of England this weekend as a heatwave develops over part of the UK. (BBC)

📣 A man has been arrested after a boy aged three was injured in a Cambridgeshire zoo’s crocodile enclosure. (Guardian)

📣 The Parthenon in Athens has been given a facelift, revealing a look not seen in 220 years. (AP)

⚽️ Canada secured their first-ever win in a World Cup with an emphatic 6-0 thumping of Qatar in Vancouver. But what should have been a night of celebration was marred by an awful injury to their midfielder Kone, who had his leg broken by a lazy, lousy challenge by Assim Madibo early in the second half. Madibo was sent off amid anger and scuffles on the pitch. (Report & highlights)

⚽️ It’s another huge game for Scotland tonight: our late kick-off against Morocco an enormous opportunity to seal progress to the latter stages of a major tournament for the first time.

Morocco will be tough, tough opposition: Scotland manager Steve Clarke described them yesterday as “the real deal”, and was unable to say if Brazil next week could pose any greater challenge. But even a point would see us through. (Daily Record)

Today’s fixtures:

🗣️ The Economist “celebrates” - perhaps “marks” is a better word - the 10th anniversary of Britain voting to leave Europe with a special edition. Its journalists examine Brexit’s impact on Britain, but also on Europe (Britain’s exit “made Europe more French,” it says. A leader declares that the UK is not ready to rejoin Europe.

“Ten years and six prime ministers after voting to quit the European Union, Britain has, to paraphrase Dean Acheson, lost a continent but not yet found a role,” the newspaper says. “The referendum on June 23rd 2016, in which Britons voted for Brexit by 52% to 48%, has left them more divided, less influential and poorer than they would otherwise have been.”

That said, we should not lay all our woes on a single cause, it warns. Imagining rejoining the EU would make everything better would be the same mistake, made in reverse.

“Instead, national renewal means grappling with the many reasons why Britain is failing to live up to its potential,” it says. :Policymaking is adrift, the state is inefficient and the private sector is weighed down by taxes and regulation. The country has mustered the leadership for a fresh start before, in the post-1945 invention of the welfare state and the reinvigoration under Margaret Thatcher. It must do so again.” (The Economist (£))

🗣️ Former Conservative minister Michael Gove, now editor of The Spectator, offers a warmer review of the impact of Brexit, as you might expect. “There are countless actions this government boasts of which simply would not have been possible if we had stayed in the EU,” he writes in his magazine.

Those actions include tariffs on imported steel, trade deals with India and the US, and even VAT on private school fees, all of which would not have been possible without Brexit.

“I recognise that some of these steps may not be to your taste. But the key to all these policies is that we can, should we choose, amend, reverse or double down on them as we, the British people, wish. And that’s the biggest Brexit benefit of all: we are a full parliamentary democracy once more. We have taken back control,” he writes. (The Spectator (£))

🗣️ The New World marks the anniversary with a history of Brexit in 256 disasters: what they say is “a brilliant, forensic, sector-by-sector analysis of the damage done to our economy, our businesses and our daily lives by leaving the European Union.” It is, in other words, exactly what you might expect from the newspaper founded as The New European, to oppose Brexit and offer a print home to remainers.

“Brexit is the gift that keeps on taking,” Jonty Bloom notes in its first of those 256 points, on the economy. If you think that’s pessimistic, the intervening 254 points won’t cheer you up. (The New World (£))

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