“We are going to be obliterated if we carry on like this,” one left-leaning Labour MP told The i Paper.
Labour MPs who had hoped Andy Burnham could stage a triumphal return to Parliament in a by-election next month did not take long to complain when he was blocked by Sir Keir Starmer.
Many now see a post-May challenge to Starmer as inevitable. More worrying for the left of the party is that there is currently no viable socialist or soft-left alternative to succeed him.
Hours after Labour’s National Executive Committee (NEC) thwarted Burnham’s ambitions, a private letter was circulating calling for a rethink. But, with only 50 signatories by the time it was presented to Starmer and the NEC on Monday, the Prime Minister’s allies see it as eminently manageable.
Worse for Burnham, plenty of his Labour colleagues are pleased that he won’t be back any time soon. “Who the hell does Andy think he is?”, one MP ally of Starmer remarked.
Some haven’t given up on getting Burnham in. On Tuesday, chatter resurfaced that a Labour MP could be induced to stand aside for Burnham in Liverpool rather than Manchester, as Labour MPs war-gamed how to get the Greater Manchester Mayor back into Parliament.
An earlier offer by the MP for Norwich South, Clive Lewis, to give up his seat to let Burnham stand has been dismissed, given the Manchester mayor’s King of the North branding. Nonetheless, Lewis is one of the key instigators of the MPs’ letter.
Labour sources are looking on gloomily at the prospect of losing Gorton and Denton next month, with the party possibly squeezed into third place behind Reform and the Greens.
Some Labour MPs – perhaps with wishful thinking – believe Starmer’s authority will be so dented by losing the by-election and swathes of seats in England, Scotland and Wales in May that a fresh attempt to put Burnham into a Labour parliamentary seat will be accepted by the NEC.
“The argument about diverting resources goes away because we will be clear of the locals in May or June,” as one pro-Burnham MP put it. Another supporter said the idea that Burnham would be abandoning Greater Manchester is nonsense after having served since 2017 and “left the city in a great state”.
But a Government source dismissed both the idea that an MP would stand aside for Burnham in Liverpool – “no one is going anywhere to my knowledge” – and that the NEC would buckle and let Burnham stand as an MP after May. “The argument about losing Greater Manchester to Reform still stands, plus the need to spend a wodge of cash to defend it, so I just don’t see it. And the makeup of the committee will be the same,” the source added.
Left disappointed by the weekend’s events, a Labour MP said they consider it too soon for Labour’s former deputy leader, Angela Rayner, to stand against Health Secretary Wes Streeting. She resigned in September after failing to get proper tax advice on a property sale. Instead, they talked up the prospect of Energy Secretary Ed Miliband becoming the choice of the soft left.
“The first choice is still Angela, depending on the timings; she just needs to sort her taxes out. But maybe Ed can be persuaded,” a third left-leaning Labour MP told The i Paper. “I know he has said he doesn’t want it, and I think he wants to be chancellor, but who knows, maybe we can bring him round?”
“Ed’s analysis is better than Keir’s cost-of-living catch-all. He thinks we should spend more time stressing that austerity and trickle-down economics have done unimaginable harm,” according to the MP, who has spoken to Miliband recently.
Even discussing Miliband’s return shows how worried the Labour left is by a Streeting coronation in the event of a challenge to Starmer. But perhaps that wing of the party is unduly concerned that it will be outmanoeuvred by a quick strike from Labour’s right.
An ally of Streeting stressed that he has no intention of launching a challenge to Starmer. Reports at the weekend that supporters of the Health Secretary believe he would command the support of up to 200 Labour MPs in a leadership contest were dismissed by a close ally as talking out of turn. The source said some MPs are hyping up Streeting’s support under the misapprehension they are being helpful, adding: “They’re really not.”
Another supporter of Streeting observed that the weekend’s fight between Starmer and Burnham had made a change from No 10 aiming their guns at the Health Secretary. “The anonymous briefers in No 10 moved their crosshairs from Wes to Andy briefly. If only they were attacking May’s elections with the same ferocity as they attack their colleagues,” they said.
Reports that some Cabinet ministers are becoming increasingly frustrated about Streeting’s forthright public criticisms of the Labour Party were viewed with some scepticism by the health secretary’s allies, who suggested No 10 was behind another attempted hit job. Two party sources said regular meetings between Streeting and Starmer’s chief of staff, Morgan McSweeney, had dried up.
“If you talk to other members of the Cabinet, you will hear there are actually some pretty robust criticisms at political cabinet of Keir’s direction, including the fact that Keir doesn’t have a proper diagnosis of what’s gone wrong with the country,” one Labour MP said.
In the meantime, there are plenty of senior Labour figures who would rather their colleagues just piped down and got on with their day jobs.
A Cabinet minister told The i Paper they were fed up with the sniping. “People are sick of No 10 briefing against Wes. Who is doing it? I really wish they’d pack it in. But equally, Wes has done nothing to rein in his behaviour, which has been noticed. Both sides need to call it off; it’s really annoying.”
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