The Andy Burnham saga sums up Keir Starmer’s reign as prime minister so far. The decision to block Burnham from running for the Greater Manchester seat Gorton and Denton is a huge political own-goal for Starmer, which feels to be a last grasp bid to delay an inevitable leadership challenge.
Burnham, a Labour veteran of over 30-years, has run for Labour leadership twice (2010 and 2015), failing both times. Burnham voted in Starmer for Labour leader in 2024. Speculation had risen recently as to whether Burnham would launch a fresh leadership challenge, however, as Burnham is not an MP, he would have to stand down as Manchester Mayor and win a seat in parliament.
Starmer, in fairness, is backed into a corner with few good options available to him. If he allowed Burnham to run for the seat in February, it would be likely (nothing is certain) that Labour and Burnham would win the seat. Labour won 29 per cent of the vote in 2024, closely followed by Reform with 27 per cent.
He is extremely popular in Manchester and Labour voters in general, taking the nickname ‘The King in the North’ from Game of Thrones character Jon Snow. Burnham would have been strong favourite to win the seat. Starmer also knows a victory would only give Burnham’s leadership challenge further momentum, something clearly keeping Starmer up at night.
The second option, which Starmer (and undoubtably advisor Morgan McSweeney) have chosen, is to nip the challenge in the bud by blocking Burnham from running. It sends a message that he isn’t going to make this leadership challenge easy for him and removes months of inevitable media speculation of a leadership contest. Seems fair enough.
Labour’s National Executive Committee (NEC) stated that: “Causing an unnecessary election for the position of Greater Manchester mayor would have a substantial and disproportionate impact on party campaign resources. Although the party would be confident of retaining the mayoralty, the NEC could not put Labours’ control of Greater Manchester at any risk”.
Scratch beneath the surface, however, and it raises numerous problems for Starmer and Labour.
Firstly, allowing Burnham to run in the Gorton and Denton by-election would set up a huge victory over the second polling party behind them, Reform. They are currently leading Labour in the polls for the seat, with 34 per cent to 32 per cent. The seat hangs on a knife edge.
British politics is very unpredictable, so victory is not a certainty, however, if Labour did win the seat, it would send a positive message to the British electorate – we are ready to fight tooth and nail to win against Reform. Labour have been in a rut of constant bad story after bad story; this was a real chance to reset this.
Instead of doing this, Labour have essentially surrendered the seat to Reform. Nigel Farage has come out and said he believes Burnham not running has boosted Reforms chances of winning the seat. Even a broken clock is right twice a day.
The Green Party offer some hope, polling third in 2024 with 24 per cent of the vote, however, have yet to name a candidate. Reform have named GB News presenter Matt Goodwin as their candidate to run in the by-election. A man that once ate a page of his own book live on television. It makes a change to just having a former Conservative run I suppose …
A Reform win, given the controversy over Burnham’s denial, would only fuel Reform and the far-right with ammunition to state their case as the next likely party in government.
There is the argument that if Burnham relinquished his mayorship early, that Reform would then win this instead of the Gorton and Denton seat. Reform has the funds to run a huge campaign for such a vital mayorship.
However, Greater Manchester has had a Labour mayor since its creation in 2017. It would be a much harder challenge for Reform to win the mayorship. Not impossible, but Labour would have a much better fighting this election, replacing Burnham with a strong candidate.
Whereas with the Gorton and Denton by-election, I struggle to see Labour fielding a candidate that would hold the same weighting as Burnham would have if he was allowed to run.
Furthermore, it does not give off an aura of confidence from Labour that they would seemingly rather duck the fight of a mayorship election with Reform in Greater Manchester. They can say they would be confident of holding the mayorship all they like, but actions speak louder than words in these politically uncertain times.
Starmer also sits on the NEC, and was allowed to vote against Burnham, which is a tough pill for Burnham to swallow.
Burnham also stated that the press was told of the decision to deny him before he was.
A dig at a certain Mr McSweeney there, methinks …
There is also the case that this decision promotes factionalism within the party, which is another easy angle of attack for Reform, as it’s a label that Labour have never been able to shrug off. Starmer’s tried to play the card that he is in total control of the party with this decision, but it’s totally backfired, giving off the impression of a man very insecure about his leadership status.
It has also failed to kill off the situation, with 50 MPs signing a letter objecting to the decision to block Burnham from standing. The BBC also reports that half a dozen Labour peers have signed the letter.
Instead of allowing Burnham to run a great campaign in Gorton and Denton, giving Labour their best shot at victory, Starmer has chosen party politics and division over the best decision for the public. The Reform top brass will be licking their lips as they eye up winning a seat in Labour heartlands, which would give them their 9th MP.
For Burnham, it’s back to the drawing board. He is used to being unpopular within the Labour party and has stated: “I will return with full focus to my role as mayor defending everything we have built in our city region over many years”.
Something tells me this is unlikely to be the last we hear of this saga.
