At the age of 21, he became a jig and tool draftsman with the same company, and stayed there until 1968, when he moved to Lucas Aerospace in Burnley as a machine shop methods engineer.

Birtwistle originally entered politics as a Labour Party councillor in the 1970s, representing Great Harwood on Lancashire County Council.

[11] In October, it was announced that with government investment through the Regional Growth Fund, the planned direct rail link between Manchester and Burnley would proceed.

The project included the reinstatement of the Todmorden Curve, a five hundred metre stretch of track unused since the 1960s, and an upgrade to Burnley Manchester Road railway station.

Projects to construct a new business park called "Burnley Bridge" and create the Visions Learning Trust University Technical College had also recently received funding.

[10] In March, he wrote of his support for increasing the minimum wage and the introduction of the pupil premium, and argued for measures to tackle tax avoidance.

[3] He was one of only a few Liberal Democrat MPs to oppose allowing same sex couples to marry, rebelling against his party in a number of Commons votes on the issue in 2013–14.

[17][18] In 2014, Birtwistle called for fellow Liberal Democrat parliamentary candidate Maajid Nawaz to be de-selected and his party membership cancelled, after he posted a controversial cartoon of Jesus and Muhammad on Twitter.

He remained in third place, but the Liberal Democrat constituency vote share declined again, falling to its lowest level since the party's formation in 1988.