Andy Burnham has won the Makerfield by-election, comfortably and decisively. So what happens now?
Team Burnham is hoping Keir Starmer will “come to his senses”, as one Burnham ally puts it, on his own over the weekend without the messiness of mass resignations or a leadership challenge or contest. Cabinet ministers may speak to Starmer privately to urge him to go, as many have done before, and the number of Labour MPs calling for his departure will continue to rise. The weekend is being seen as the “grace period” in which Starmer can mull his decision and choose to set out a timetable for his departure on his own terms.
Will that happen? So far there are absolutely no indications from him that he is going anywhere. The Prime Minister was on TV this morning confirming he will stand if there is a contest, and used a lunchtime call with Labour staff members to warn Andy Burnham against “plunging our party and our country into chaos”, although he did not mention the new Makerfield MP by name.
Starmer, thanking staff for their work in the by-election, said the party needs to “pull together”, “take the fight” to Reform and “give them a hiding” in the Greater Manchester mayoralty contest, with a not-so-subtle warning for Burnham supporters:
“The one thing we’ve got to avoid doing is plunging our party and our country into chaos by turning on each other and tearing apart our party and our movement. That has never worked. That’s what the last government did. We need to learn that lesson.”
Behind the scenes in recent days, Starmer-supportive MPs and aides have approached Labour MPs – particularly those with small majorities – to warn them that Burnham would call an early general election and would put them at risk of losing their seats. The Prime Minister’s allies have been arguing to party members and MPs that ousting him would be playing into the hands of the right-wing press and parties who have wanted to see Starmer brought down from day one.
“The sense of duty has settled on Keir I think,” an ally says. He is determined to fight on. “You can’t hand No 10 over to someone just because they ask you to. That’s not grown up.” He sees no reason why he should vacate No 10 having won a decisive mandate only two years ago.
Starmer has the nuts and bolts of a leadership campaign ready to go, including a “war chest” of £100k+ donations and a bank account ready to receive further funding. Anna Turley, chair of the Labour Party, wrote privately to cabinet ministers this week asking them to submit detailed reports of what their department has done to “improve the lives of working people”, due today (Friday). Cabinet ministers have interpreted that as an obvious signal that Starmer is preparing material for a contest, fought on the idea that he has delivered substantial changes for the country already.
“He’s going to fight it. You get to the point where you’ve said it so many times, and started the process, you’ve got to do it,” one Starmer ally said. “He means it,” another No 10 insider adds. “There just comes a point where political gravity might say differently.”
If Starmer doesn’t reach a decision to set out a timetable over the weekend, political gravity could yet kick in with more force on Monday. Burnham is planning to present Starmer with a private list of Labour MPs who are backing him, as I revealed on Thursday night, essentially presenting the Prime Minister with the choice of going the easy way or the hard way. Burnham has already cleared the threshold (81 Labour MPs) required to trigger a contest, I gather, but work to bring Labour MPs onside is still ongoing. One insider tells me Burnham plans to present Starmer with over 200 names, including those of front benchers who would resign, so the Prime Minister is compelled to move.
Team Burnham talks of wanting to minimise chaos, maximise dignity for the outgoing Prime Minister, and about what’s in the best interests of the Labour Party. But it is also in Burnham’s interests, after a gruelling by-election campaign, to avoid a leadership contest and have a few months’ transition period to prepare for power.
The work to get as many Labour MPs behind Burnham as possible is still ongoing. Some MPs are privately supportive of Burnham but don’t want to be part of triggering a contest. Others want more detail about his policy plans. And one particular issue for some on the right of the Labour Party is whether Burnham would choose Ed Miliband as chancellor or not. Some have explicitly told Burnham’s team that they need reassurance that he won’t be given that role before coming on board, suggesting that Burnham’s choice would need to be either Shabana Mahmood or Wes Streeting.
But for now all eyes for now are on Downing Street, and on the mindset of the man who can end this all right now if he wants to, but ardently believes he shouldn’t have to. “I really don’t know where we’ll be in seven days’ time,” one person insider mulls.
[Further reading: Only Keir Starmer can take Labour’s hope away now]
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Subscribe here to commentAll them corn fields and ballet in the evening – Fred Kite.
Let’s say that YOU work in an organisation with about 600 employees. You are told that about 100 of them think you should resign and give your job to their mate. Would YOU do it? You know about half of those people wanted the job to go to a mate of theirs in the first place. However, it wsa you who won the selection process for the job a couple of years ago. Now this other mate has turned up, and you know the people who didn’t want you appointed in the first place have been casting around for someone who could get you dismissed. You know they have been agitating against you all along, aggrieved because you got the job instead of their friend. Would YOU resign “with dignity” to let this other person have your job? I bet you wouldn’t be so pious if it happened to you.
If anyone thinks Andy Burnham will lead the government to the sunlit uplands, then they are delusional. The attacks will start on day one. Burnham will be fenced in by the constraints that Starmer and Reeves have been wrestling with. Burnham has no mandate to change things or to be prime minister. Makerfield might want him to be PM (or might not) but they don’t represent the majority of voters. He hasn’t even been a minister for the last decade. How will he cope with being prime minister when he’s not even been in the cabinet? He couldn’t wave a magic wand and make it all go away even if he’d had the recent Westminster experience. And without a General Election, he’s got no mandate to overturn the manifesto commitments made 2 years ago. Just watch as the flame throwers are turned on him! Just watch as he unravels under the spotlight and the heat.