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Labour MPs are mulling throwing their weight behind a challenger to Andy Burnham as the party’s next leader, to avoid the new MP becoming prime minister without substantial scrutiny.
Some MPs are considering support for Darren Jones, chief secretary to the prime minister, who has not yet ruled himself out as a potential candidate when nominations open on July 9.
Al Carns, who quit as defence minister this month, is also still exploring a tilt for the top job.
Neither Jones nor Carns is thought to have close to the 81 signatures needed to take part in a leadership contest, equivalent to one in five members of the Parliamentary Labour Party. But sentiment within the party could shift over the next fortnight, some MPs say.
Wes Streeting, who resigned as health secretary earlier this year to try to force Sir Keir Starmer out, has folded in behind Burnham in the hope of a top job in his first cabinet. That appeared to cement the idea of a “coronation” for the Greater Manchester mayor with a smooth uncontested transfer of power.
Yet some other MPs are still pondering whether there should be a lengthy leadership contest in which Burnham could set out his stall in greater detail for running the government.
If unchallenged, Burnham would become prime minister on July 17, the day after nominations close.
A Labour leadership contest, by contrast, could drag on for as long as three months over the summer.
Nadia Whittome, a backbench MP, said “there needs to be a contest” for the next Labour leader. She said it was hard to deal with the country’s problems “without candidates setting out their stall transparently and being scrutinised by members and by unions”.
John Slinger, another Labour MP, said that a failure to have a proper contest would suggest the party had “lost our minds”. He told BBC Radio 4 that it was “necessary” for the leader of a major economy to have some democratic legitimacy.
Yet Labour MP Jo White told the BBC that a contest would be a “pointless charade” and said the new leader needed to get in as quickly as possible to “get on with the job of governing”.
Starmer on Monday morning announced that he would step down as prime minister, admitting that he had lost the support of his own MPs. His authority had been rocked by a calamitous set of election results in May for the Scottish parliament, Welsh Senedd and English councils.
Starmer will preside over one of his final cabinet meetings on Tuesday in what is likely to be a poignant gathering.
Burnham, who is still the overwhelming favourite to succeed him as prime minister, will set out some of his programme for government in the coming days, including an economic speech next week.
A cabinet minister under Gordon Brown nearly two decades ago, he has not yet set out in detail many policy proposals.
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