Allies of Sir Keir Starmer launched an immediate and coordinated campaign to stop Andy Burnham returning to Parliament as fears grew the Mayor of Greater Manchester would make him a “lame duck” Prime Minister.
Within minutes of it emerging on Thursday that long-running negotiations over a pension settlement for shamed Labour MP Andrew Gwynne had been concluded, Starmer’s allies moved to prevent Burnham from standing in a by-election for his Greater Manchester seat of Gorton and Denton.
Gwynne, who lost the Labour whip last year after the emergence of offensive messages in a WhatsApp group, was sacked as a health minister and suspended from Labour, while he was also put under investigation by a parliamentary watchdog.
The 51-year-old, who is understood to be suffering ill-health, has been in talks with Parliamentary authorities about extra payments into his taxpayer-funded pension to allow him to retire early on medical grounds.
Burnham has been a fierce critic of Starmer
Burnham, the self-styled King of the North, has been toying with a return to Parliament to challenge Starmer but needed a vacant seat to become available.
An offer from Norwich South Labour MP Clive Lewis to stand aside for Burnham was rejected on the grounds it was too far from Manchester or Liverpool, where Burnham was born.
The Gorton and Denton seat is deemed perfect for the Mayor of Greater Manchester.
The 56-year-old, who was MP for Leigh in Greater Manchester between 2001 and 2017 before being elected to the mayoralty, has been a fierce critic of Starmer.
On Thursday, Burnham was claiming ignorance of Gwynne’s intentions.
“It’s not been confirmed to me,” Burnham said. “I’ve had no contact on this issue with Andrew, or anyone close to him. I know him of old of course but I’m as in the dark about this as anyone.”
Even so, Starmer’s allies were quick to urge Burnham not to stand. “At a time when we are gearing up to council elections, we don’t need an Andy Burnham circus which will only divert resources, manpower and money away from vital areas we need to win.
There would also need to be a mayoral by-election which would cost millions of pounds,” a Labour MP told The i Paper.
Starmer fails to back the Manchester Mayor
Starmer himself was keen to stress that “Andy Burnham is doing an excellent job as Mayor of Manchester.”
“It is a very early stage, and the National Executive Committee of the Labour Party will set out the process in the usual way, as it always does for by-elections,” the prime minister told broadcasters.
“We work very closely together. Last year, we were responding together to the terrible attack on a synagogue in Manchester. More recently, we were working together on Northern Powerhouse Rail.
“I think Andy would acknowledge that working with this Government has been much better than the experience he had of working with previous governments.”
There are other hurdles to Burnham even being selected to stand, never mind winning the seat, which is likely to be fiercely contested by Reform UK.
Burnham must pass a selection panel with Labour’s National Executive Committee (NEC), allowing him to become a by-election candidate, and then win the seat.
The NEC’s membership is controlled by Starmer and his allies, and includes representatives from local Labour parties, the parliamentary group of Labour MPs, the party’s headquarters and the trade unions.
The NEC’s current chair is Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood, to the right of the party. Other MPs on the body include Ellie Reeves, the solicitor general and sister of the chancellor, and Jonathan Reynolds, the chief whip.
There are left-wingers on the committee but in a minority including trade unions, as well as Labour’s Deputy Leader, Lucy Powell.
The Labour Party’s latest rule book states that directly-elected mayors, such as Mr Burnham, must “seek the express permission” of party officials before trying to be nominated as a party candidate for a Westminster contest.
Anger if Burnham is blocked
There are also suggestions that the NEC could opt for an all-female shortlist of by-election candidates, as the gender balance in the Parliamentary Labour Party has fallen below 50 per cent.
Theoretically, Starmer could block Burnham. “He’d risk looking really feeble though,” a Labour source told The i Paper.
Steve Wright, the general secretary of the Fire Brigades Union, said it would be a “democratic outrage” if Burnham was blocked from being the party’s by-election candidate.
“In the event that a by-election takes place, as an affiliated union, the FBU will not stand by and allow senior Labour politicians like Andy to be carved out of this process,” he said.
However, another Labour source suggested the moment Burnham enters Parliament he’s a “lame duck” prime minister. “I just can’t see him [Starmer] allowing it,” the source said.
“The party can find some excuse like all women short lists or say that he shouldn’t stand because his economic views don’t tally with sound government.”
The prospect of the Labour Party shifting to the left under Burnham unnerved the markets, prompting a fall in the pound and a rise in bond yields as investors worried about instability.
This week Burnham doubled down on his view originally made in a September interview that the UK is “in hock to the bond markets” in a speech to the Institute for Fiscal Studies.
Not certain Burnham would win
In the run-up to Labour’s annual conference last year, Burnham gave a series of interviews in which he criticised the government’s economic approach and promised to increase Government borrowing by £40 billion to pay for the building of more council homes.
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However, it’s also not clear Labour would win Manchester and Gorton again, despite securing a 37 per cent majority there in the 2024 general election.
Electoral Calculus’s seat-by-seat projections, released this month, indicate a probable loss of the constituency to Reform under current electoral conditions.
The analysis, derived from a December poll conducted by Find Out Now, indicated Reform’s standing at 33 per cent in Gorton and Denton, surpassing the Greens at 24 per cent and Labour at 20 per cent.
However, Burnham’s existing public profile in Manchester would likely benefit both him and the Labour Party, potentially resulting in a more competitive election.
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