Sir Keir Starmer is facing an agonising and protracted leadership crisis after Andy Burnham, Labour mayor of Greater Manchester, was handed a route back to Westminster and potentially the keys to 10 Downing Street.
A day of intense drama culminated on Thursday in the announcement that Labour MP Josh Simons was resigning his Makerfield seat near Manchester in the hope that Burnham would replace him in a parliamentary by-election.
Starmer, under extreme pressure from different flanks of his Labour Party to allow Burnham to stand, was forced to accept that he could not try to block him, in effect leaving his premiership in limbo.
Labour officials said that Number 10 had indicated to the party’s MPs that it would not seek to stop Burnham. Earlier this year Starmer’s allies blocked the mayor contesting the Gorton and Denton by-election.
Burnham, who is popular with Labour MPs and party members, threw down the gauntlet when he confirmed he would seek selection for the Makerfield seat, so that he could help change the UK.
“This is why I now seek people’s support to return to parliament: to bring the change we have brought to Greater Manchester to the whole of the UK and make politics work properly for people,” he said.
Burnham needs to be an MP to stand for the Labour leadership. The Makerfield by-election would take place within four to six weeks of Labour moving the writ in parliament. If that happened soon, Burnham could theoretically be back at Westminster by mid-June.
If he then challenged Starmer for the party leadership upon becoming an MP, a new prime minister could potentially be installed by the parliamentary summer break or at Labour’s conference in late September.
While Starmer is too weak to block Burnham, the voters of Makerfield may prove a more daunting challenge for the mayor — who grew up nearby and lives in the next-door town of Leigh, the Westminster seat he represented from 2001 until 2017.
Simons won the Makerfield seat in 2024 with a majority of just 5,399 over Reform UK. Nigel Farage’s party last week swept the board in local council elections there.
Burnham, a 56-year-old former cabinet minister who is part of Labour’s “soft-left”, will hope his popularity locally will carry him to victory, but Farage said Reform would “throw absolutely everything at” the by-election.
If Burnham did win the by-election, he could make the case in a Labour leadership race that he had proven he was able to beat Reform.
Burnham would be far and away the favourite to win a leadership election. He is the first choice of two-fifths of Labour members, according to a recent poll by Survation — more than the total combined first preference votes given to rivals Angela Rayner, Ed Miliband and Wes Streeting.
Starmer’s allies have previously argued that Burnham had promised to serve a full term as Greater Manchester mayor and that it would cost Labour £1mn to contest a mayoralty by-election, with the risk that Reform could win.
But Starmer, weakened by a tidal wave of Labour criticism of his leadership since last week’s disastrous election results in Scotland, Wales and English councils, has accepted he will be unable to stop Burnham this time.
Starmer had received some respite earlier, when Streeting dropped his own leadership bid on Thursday lunchtime. The Blairite health secretary quit the government but did not launch a challenge — with Starmer’s allies claiming he did not have the numbers to trigger a contest.
One minister loyal to Starmer said Streeting had dug himself “into a hole” by claiming that he had the backing of 81 Labour MPs needed to stage a leadership bid, when in fact he had no more than 45 supporters.
Streeting, who is on the right of the Labour Party, departed his job with a vituperative resignation letter denouncing Starmer. He said: “Where we need vision, we have a vacuum. Where we need direction, we have drift.”
Crucially Streeting warned Starmer not to block Burnham, saying that Labour needed “the best possible field of candidates”. Streeting’s allies insisted he could still contest the leadership at a later stage against Burnham.
Meanwhile Rayner, the former deputy prime minister who is on Labour’s left, also said Burnham should not be blocked from standing for parliament. Miliband, the energy secretary and former Labour leader, has made the same case.
Rayner, who announced that she would not be fined by HM Revenue & Customs over an unpaid £40,000 property tax bill, is expected to back Burnham in a leadership contest.
Starmer has warned that a leadership election would lead to “chaos” and damaging business uncertainty.
Markets will now assess the likely impact of a Burnham premiership on government borrowing.
Burnham has previously said that he does not want Britain to be “in hock” to the bond markets, and has also suggested that some defence spending should be excluded from the government’s fiscal rules.
Sterling fell below $1.34 for the first time in a month after Simons’ announcement, a loss of 1 per cent on the day.
Steve Reed, a cabinet minister loyal to Starmer, told a Spectator event: “If anyone thinks there is a caped superhero that is coming our way with all the answers, they have another thing coming.”
Downing Street announced that James Murray, previously Treasury chief secretary, would become the new health secretary. Lucy Rigby will take on Murray’s old role.
Additional reporting by Ian Smith
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