The Labour Party primaries are still far on the horizon, but the two candidates who have already made clear their intention to participate in them do not want to waste a minute before starting to campaign. The former Justice Minister, Wes Streeting, has already pulled out of the hat the ghost that has haunted the British left for a decade, suggesting that the United Kingdom, “one day, will have to rejoin the European Union.”
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It was an ambiguous statement, because what Streeting really promises is “a new relationship with the EU,” to be able to correct “a catastrophic mistake that left the country poorer, with less power and less control over its future. We cannot remain silent on this matter,” he said. That statement drew the biggest applause from all the MPs who had come to hear him at the conference organized by Progress, a think tank affiliated with the Labour Party created in its day by the protagonists of Tony Blair’s New Labour. Streeting does not hide his adherence to that moderate left current (which his critics prefer to call the “right wing” of the party), but he trusts that his charisma, communication skills, and recent months’ attempts to seduce the most skeptical MPs about his message and intentions will eventually bear fruit.
So far, Streeting resists confirming whether he has the eighty signatures from parliamentary group colleagues necessary to activate a primary process. But it is not the time yet. Streeting gave his support, as soon as he announced his resignation last Wednesday, for Labour to take the necessary time for Manchester’s mayor, Andy Burnham, the favorite of the grassroots according to all polls, to obtain a seat and return to Parliament, an essential condition to be able to fight for the Party leadership.
The National Executive Committee has already given the mayor permission to stand in the Makerfield by-election, in northwest England, which should be held around mid-June. Burnham knows that this seat, although Labour won it easily two years ago, is now more difficult to reclaim.
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Nigel Farage’s far right, which swept that area of the country in the English local elections on May 7, has vowed to block the mayor and defeat him at the polls. But Burnham knows he has no time to lose, and his campaign for the Makerfield seat is already also the campaign for the Labour Party leadership, whenever those primaries are held. “We have to use this opportunity to rescue the Labour Party, to save it from the situation it is in,” Burnham told the BBC, in a direct criticism, though without naming him, of Prime Minister Keir Starmer. “I want Labour to be solidly the party of the working classes and communities, and that will require many changes,” he added.
Although Burnham has not yet wanted to enter the discussion about a hypothetical re-entry of the United Kingdom into the EU, which would probably contaminate his electoral chances in Makerfield and give ammunition to Farage’s party, his idea about the future relationship with Brussels was already very clear in an interview with EL PAÍS two years ago. “Re-entry is not currently a political option on the table. But I trust that future generations, our grandchildren, will bring the United Kingdom back into the European Union,” said the Manchester mayor then.
While Streeting and Burnham have already launched themselves into the competition, Prime Minister Starmer, with fewer and fewer supporters in the party and parliamentary group, avoids direct debate with his potential rivals and continues to maintain the image that his Government is moving forward. He has already made it clear that if someone finally activates the primary process, he will also compete to try to preserve his position. But until that challenge officially starts, Starmer has repeated over and over that he does not intend to resign.
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