3 July 2026

Who will be Labour’s next general secretary?

Andy Burnham could use the vacancy to stamp his mark on the party

There is another job vacancy at the top of the Labour Party after General Secretary Hollie Ridley told staff that she is stepping down to allow a replacement “to work alongside a new leader once they are elected”. The general secretary role is essential to Labour’s fundraising and electioneering, as well as overseeing the internal governance of the party. Ridley, a Keir Starmer ally, was chosen in a speedy, single-candidate selection shortly after Labour’s 2024 election win.

Labour’s leader-in-waiting Andy Burnham will hope to stamp his political imprint on the party through the next general secretary. The National Executive Committee will now be tasked with choosing a new general secretary to take over after a ratifying vote at annual conference in September.

Here are the names currently being floated:

Joe Fortune

Fortune is currently General Secretary of the Co-operative Party, Labour’s sister party. The Liverpudlian has been credited with turning around the party financially and organisationally since taking on the role in 2019. With Andy Burnham set to become the first Labour and Co-Op MP to serve as leader of the Labour Party (and prime minister), it would make sense for him to bring a major figure from the Co-op Party like Joe Fortune into the fold as Labour’s general secretary, not least because of their political similarities. Next year marks a century of the Co-op Party’s electoral alliance with Labour, so his appointment would be an appropriate consummation of that relationship.

Christina McAnea

McAnea became the first female general secretary of Unison in 2021 and was once listed by the New Statesman as one of the top ten most powerful left wingers in Britain. But she lost the job last year after being defeated in the Unison leadership election by Andrea Egan, a left-wing challenger. It was an abrupt end to a long career in the labour movement, but the general secretary role would be a natural second act.

John Lehal

Formerly chief operating officer of the party, Lehal made a bid for the role back in September 2024 but was passed over in favour of Ridley. He is expected to make clear his continuing interest in the role this time around, although he is not currently employed by the party and works as a freelance consultant.

Claire Reynolds

Reynolds worked in Starmer’s No 10 as the key liaison between backbench MPs and the government. She left this role following the breakdown of relations during the welfare rebellion of 2025 and was moved to a senior role at Labour Party HQ. Reynolds previously ran the Labour Women’s Network and the gen sec role could be a natural step up.

Wild cards:

Anthony Lavelle

Lavelle was a key organiser of the successful Burnham campaign in the Makerfield by-election and currently serves as North West director of the Labour Party (in this role, his name was in small print on all of Burnham’s campaign posters). He is also a Labour councillor in Liverpool. Taking on the gen sec role would be a swift elevation for Lavelle, and a further sign of the party’s geographical tilt from London to the north west of England.

Lisa Johnson

A former director of the trade union GMB, Johnson was tipped for the general secretary role back in 2020 after Keir Starmer’s election as leader. She has since moved into a private sector role at Starship Technologies, a robotics firm. Might she be persuaded to re-enter the world of Labour politics?

Steve Rotheram (or another metro mayor)

The appointment of a serving metro mayor would be another strong signal of Burnham’s commitment to devolution, plus he is close to all of the other metro mayors and was often said to have acted as their de facto leader in discussions with the government on the Council of the Nations and Regions. Rotheram is particularly close to Burnham – they even wrote a book together. But the Labour Party rule book stipulates that the gen sec must devote their whole time to the role, so straddling the two jobs would not likely be deemed acceptable.

[Further reading: The Greens are ready to fight Andy Burnham]