Andy Burnham will reward the MP who stood aside so he could run for Parliament by giving a senior job in No 10 if he becomes prime minister, Labour Party sources told The i Paper.
Former MP Josh Simons revealed last Thursday that he would quit his seat, Makerfield, to allow the Greater Manchester Mayor to stand and return to the Commons. In his resignation letter, Simons said he was putting his constituents first, as he believed a “shock to the Westminster system” was needed.
However, since then, the MP has been dogged by questions over whether he struck a deal with Burnham.
On Monday, party sources said if Burnham were successful in his bid for Parliament, and then also unseated Sir Keir Starmer as Prime Minister, Simons would be given the position of head of policy, and a role as a floating political secretary in No 10. The latter post acts as a link between the prime minister, their MPs and grassroots.
Simons dismissed the claim, telling The i Paper: “This is gossip and tittle-tattle.” But he stopped short of denying the claim. “Despite being exhausted after a long and emotional week, I am focused on one thing and one thing only: supporting Andy to win the by-election in Makerfield,” he said. “That is all that matters for the Labour Party and the country.”
Any future leader will be likely to reward their key lieutenants. If former health secretary Wes Streeting succeeds Starmer, he could reap the support of his allies who resigned last week.
Simons ‘not acting in personal interest’
A spokesman for Burnham declined to comment. The Mayor is expected to be formally selected as Labour’s candidate for Makerfield, in Greater Manchester, on Tuesday. In advance of persuading Simons to stand aside, Burnham’s allies had also offered peerages to MPs so he could return to Westminster, The i Paper reported last month.
At only 32, Simons has already packed in a lot. After a stint as a research scientist on artificial intelligence at Meta in 2022 he joined think tank Labour Together as its director, before his last-minute selection for the Makerfield seat two years later. After winning the constituency he rose up the ranks and was promoted to a junior ministerial post in the Cabinet Office in September last year.
Makerfield MP Josh Simons, 32, has been a rising star for Labour (Photo: Carlos Jasso/AFP)He resigned from Starmer’s Government in February, over his role in Labour Together’s commissioning of a public affairs agency, APCO, to investigate journalists’ reporting on the think tank. He said that while he had been cleared of breaching the Ministerial Code, the allegations had become a “distraction” from the Government’s work. Labour Together was already unpopular with Labour MPs on the socialist wing, who viewed it as a vehicle to organise against former party leader Jeremy Corbyn. Some colleagues have also seen Simons as close to Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood .
On Sunday, Simons, who has a three-week-old baby and two other children, told the BBC that he was not acting in his own personal interest. “This was not an easy thing to do, and I wouldn’t have done it unless I really, really believed at the end of the day that this was in the best interests of the Labour Party, my community and, most importantly, the country,” he said.
Hence then, the article about andy burnham to reward mp who stood aside with top no 10 job was published today ( ) and is available on inews ( Middle East ) The editorial team at PressBee has edited and verified it, and it may have been modified, fully republished, or quoted. You can read and follow the updates of this news or article from its original source.
Read More Details
Finally We wish PressBee provided you with enough information of ( Andy Burnham ‘to reward’ MP who stood aside with top No 10 job )
Also on site :