Andy Burnham, the Labour mayor of Greater Manchester, last year co-wrote a book on politics in England’s northwest. It was called Head North.
Now, as the former MP is linked to a potential challenge to embattled UK prime minister Keir Starmer, Burnham is wondering aloud if he should head south again.
After days of public posturing by Burnham over the leadership this week, Starmer knocked the story off the front pages of UK papers on Friday by announcing a plan to bring in mandatory so-called “Britcard” digital identification for Britons.
Yet as a febrile and divided Labour Party heads into its annual conference in Liverpool on Sunday, the question of Starmer’s leadership is sure to quickly return to the fore.
RM Block
Burnham, the vaunted “king of the north”, is wildly popular in Manchester and viewed by some as Labour’s prince across the water. While a growing number of MPs believe he wants to return to Westminster, could he really unseat the prime minister just 14 months after Keir Starmer led Labour to a landslide election win?
[ Labour’s ‘King of the North’ highlights growing problem facing Keir StarmerOpens in new window ]
Or, as some senior party figures believe, could the Manchester mayor’s shape-throwing instead clear the way for a better-placed challenger to have a run at Downing Street?
“He has always coveted the leadership,” says one party power broker. “And a whole load of MPs are sick of Keir. They’re also murderous right now. But Andy might only succeed in opening it up for someone else. I wonder if he has over-reached a bit here.”
Several versions of an old political joke were doing the rounds among Labour figures this week, highlighting how Burnham is viewed as a political chameleon by some within the party. One version goes: a Blairite, a Brownite and a Corbynite walked into a bar. The barman turned to him and asked: “How are you doing, Andy?”
Burnham, now 55, is a Cambridge graduate who embraces his northern identity. He has been widely touted in recent times as a champion of the soft-left of the party that has been subjugated and sidelined by Starmer. But he first made his mark as an MP as a right-leaning junior minister under former prime minister Tony Blair.
He was later an enthusiastic backer of Blair’s successor, Gordon Brown, who promoted Burnham to cabinet in the culture portfolio and then as health secretary before Labour were catapulted out of government in the 2010 election.
Burnham was never particularly close to left-winger Jeremy Corbyn, although he did serve for a period in his shadow cabinet. The jibe characterising him as a “Corbynite” stems from Burnham’s exhortation this week for Labour to spend big and “get beyond this thing of being in hock to the bond markets” – catnip to leftist acolytes of Corbyn.
Other versions of the joke replaced Corbynite with Trussite, but Starmer’s allies were making the same point: Burnham’s calls this week for nationalising water and abandoning fiscal rules mark him as another Liz Truss – someone who would spook markets and risk bankrupting Britain.
Burnham quit as an MP in 2017 and ran for mayor in Manchester, easily winning a third term last year. However, for years he has continued to field questions about his desire to return to Westminster and contest the party leadership.
In an interview with The Irish Times last year, Burnham said: “I’m not ruling it out but would only be going back if I felt I could deliver some of the change I’ve called for.”
His tense relationship with the prime minister is believed to stem from Burnham’s refusal to back Starmer for the Labour leadership in 2020. In the years afterwards, he occasionally took aim at Starmer from afar for a perceived lack of vision.
Their working relationship improved – at least initially – in the run-up to the election win last year when Sue Gray was the Labour leader’s chief of staff, and promised the Manchester mayor that a Starmer government would better deploy devolution powers.
Gray was later sacked. The recent turmoil in Starmer’s government – the churn in the prime minister’s operation has been startling, and Labour’s poll numbers are subterranean – appears to have led Burnham to conclude that the Labour leader is not up to the job after all.
He told the Daily Telegraph this week in one of several critical interviews that MPs had been approaching him “all summer” asking him to challenge Starmer.
In another interview this week with the New Statesman, Burnham accused Starmer of running a “factional” and “divisive” regime. A day later he told the BBC it was up to Labour MPs whether or not he mounted a leadership bid, in effect calling on them to push for regime change.
[ The Irish Times view on the Starmer question: Labour should be carefulOpens in new window ]
That has prompted one senior party figure to wonder to The Irish Times if Burnham is the one to challenge Starmer after all: “If he is waiting on the Labour parliamentary party to kick this all off, they won’t do it.”
Under party rules, a leadership challenge and a membership vote can begin only after at least 20 per cent of Labour MPs nominate a potential replacement – that would require about 80 MPs currently. Any challenger would also have to be an MP. Burnham would need to find a pliant MP in the Manchester area to step down to make way for him.
Then he would have to get picked to run – not a given when Starmer allies control the committee that has overall control of the selection of candidates. Even if he cleared those hurdles, Burnham would still have to beat Reform in the byelection to follow, which would be a battle royal, given that Nigel Farage’s party is way ahead in polls.
Burnham has been linked to a potential byelection run in the seat held by local MP Andrew Gwynne, who is currently suspended but claimed this week he wouldn’t stand aside. Burnham has also been touted to replace another MP, Graham Stringer, but he has also publicly ruled it out – for now.
“Another one to look at is Navendu Mishra,” says a well-connected party stalwart, suggesting the Stockport MP is another who could stand aside. “There is no safe seat from Reform. But the thinking would be that if Andy stood, he’d change the dynamics.
“But would the real Andy Burnham please stand up,” says the senior member, in reference to the perception that the Manchester mayor changes his political spots too often. “He appeals to the people to whom he appeals, but to others, not so much.”
Another powerful figure in the party, when asked if Burnham has much support among MPs, replies: “Yes, but not as much as he thinks. It isn’t organised enough yet.”
They say there is “fury” towards Starmer in Burnham’s northwest hinterland after a large number of ministers from the area lost their jobs in a recent reshuffle. “But support for Andy is less intense in other parts of the country,” they say.
The senior figure suggests cabinet members such as Lisa Nandy, Yvette Cooper, Wes Streeting and even the recently promoted Darren Jones might be competition to a Burnham leadership bid, if the Manchester mayor does manage a return to Westminster and Starmer is challenged.
For now, anger among MPs over Labour’s current travails is being directed at Starmer’s chief of staff, Irish man Morgan McSweeney, as much as or even more than it is aimed at the prime minister.
“But I think a lot of what takes place next will depend on the budget in November,” says a source. “Let’s see how the markets react to that, and then we’ll see what happens.”
