In politics, no gesture or signal is wasted. The Mayor of Manchester, Andy Burnham, who today is the focus of all eyes as a potential leader of the Labour Party and, therefore, the new Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, was seen this Friday morning when he went out for a run. His city is home to two teams with Champions League cups, Manchester United and Manchester City, but he was wearing a vintage t-shirt from the 1980s of Everton F.C., the historic team of the working-class and popular Liverpool, the neighboring and rival city.
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Burnham was born there, and his gesture had the dual purpose of showing pride in his family and ideological origins. The great hope of the Labour left wing still has a very difficult path ahead if he wants to replace Keir Starmer in his position.
The main unknown was cleared up on Thursday, when a volunteer finally emerged willing to resign his seat in the House of Commons so that Burnham could try to fight for it. Being an MP is essential to compete in hypothetical Labour primaries. Josh Simons announced that he would stop representing the Makerfield constituency, in northwest England, a relatively close area to Manchester where the left won two years ago with a relatively comfortable margin.
Within a minimum period of 21 days, a by-election will be called in Makerfield. All parties will present a candidate for that seat. And the far-right Reform UK, Nigel Farage’s party, has already made it clear that it will fight hard to prevent Burnham from winning.
The Labour Party has reasons to be worried. In the last local elections in England on May 7, the trigger of the great leadership crisis that Starmer is experiencing, Reform UK managed for the first time to gain hundreds of councilors in a region where traditionally the left voted.
First obstacle overcome: the Labour Party’s National Executive Committee (NEC) gave the green light this very Friday, with unusual urgency, to the mayor’s candidacy. Last February, when he wanted to run in the Gordon and Denton by-election (after the resignation of another party MP), Starmer, who controls the NEC, prevented it, with the excuse that the Manchester mayoralty could not be put at risk, which Burnham would have to resign if he won the seat.
After a civil war in the party over a week and dozens of MPs and unionists demanding the prime minister step aside for another leader, he could no longer block his rival.
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“We need our best players on the field. There is no doubt that Andy Burnham is one of them. The Makerfield by-election will be tough. Votes will have to be earned. Andy is our best bet to win, and that is something that must be above any consideration of a supposed personal advantage [in the primary battle],” wrote former Health Minister Wes Streeting this Friday on X, who has already made it clear that he will compete in a future Labour leadership battle.
By resigning on Thursday, with a harsh letter accusing Starmer of lacking “vision” to drive the country forward and denying him his trust, Streeting had managed to accelerate the process of replacing the prime minister. But he did not want to go further. Either because he still lacked the necessary support of 80 MPs to activate the primaries, or because he did not want to appear as the first to stab, or as the opportunist accelerating the process so that Burnham would be left out of it.
The ‘Starmer campaign’
If Burnham manages to win in Makerfield, he would be almost unbeatable, because he would not only already have a seat, but he would have demonstrated, in a personal battle, that he is capable of defeating the far-right threat.
But all those are still many conditions. No one has yet moved to activate the necessary mechanisms to start the competition for the party leadership. Starmer, who was seen this Friday while visiting a police station but keeps his mouth shut regarding the internal battle in his party, insists that if a primary process opens, he will also compete. Resigning is not even on his mind, and he continues warning everyone he talks to that the fratricidal war the Labour Party seems to be heading towards will put the party and the country in a chaotic situation.
In fact, the prime minister has issued a video, recorded at Downing Street and again in rolled-up sleeves, in the attitude of someone ready to get down to the mud to fight, to condemn the demonstration organized in London this Saturday by the far-right and Islamophobic Tommy Robinson, under the slogan Unite the Kingdom. “Tomorrow’s [Saturday’s] demonstration is a reminder of what we are fighting against in this battle for principles. Its organizers are dedicated to stirring up hatred and division,” warned the prime minister, who aims to convey to the public his commitment to law and order and the image of a government under control.
But there seems to be no turning back. There will be primaries, but everything could still be suspended for several months. The original idea of all those who began demanding a “orderly transition” from Starmer after the electoral blow of May 7 was that the party could have a new leader for the next annual conference. That means postponing the decision until the end of September. Meanwhile, to the opposition’s delight, Starmer will remain at Downing Street, leading a government that 25% of its MPs have told no longer has authority.
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