{"id":450822,"date":"2026-02-28T19:52:07","date_gmt":"2026-02-28T19:52:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/450822\/"},"modified":"2026-02-28T19:52:07","modified_gmt":"2026-02-28T19:52:07","slug":"burnham-would-probably-have-won-byelection-says-labour-deputy-leader-labour","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/450822\/","title":{"rendered":"Burnham would \u2018probably\u2019 have won byelection, says Labour deputy leader | Labour"},"content":{"rendered":"

Andy Burnham would have won the Gorton and Denton byelection, Labour\u2019s deputy leader said as she called for the party to make more use of the Greater Manchester mayor.<\/p>\n

Overturning a 13,000 Labour<\/a> majority from the general election, Hannah Spencer, a local plumber and Green councillor, became the party\u2019s fifth MP on Friday in an area that had returned Labour MPs for nearly a century.<\/p>\n

Reform UK\u2019s Matt Goodwin was second, just ahead of the Labour candidate, Angeliki Stogia.<\/p>\n

The result has prompted renewed questioning of the party\u2019s decision to block Burnham from contesting the seat last month.<\/p>\n

Speaking to the BBC\u2019s Newscast podcast, Labour\u2019s deputy leader, Lucy Powell<\/a>, said Burnham \u201cprobably would have\u201d held the seat.<\/p>\n

She said: \u201cI think certainly the Greens wouldn\u2019t have gone after the seat in the same way that they did.\u201d<\/p>\n

Powell was the only member of Labour\u2019s ruling national executive committee to vote in favour of allowing Burnham to stand in Gorton and Denton, with eight others including Keir Starmer voting against.<\/p>\n

But she told the BBC she accepted \u201ccollective responsibility\u201d for the decision, citing concern about a mayoral byelection in Greater Manchester<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Powell also said her party needed to draw inspiration from the reasons for Burnham\u2019s popularity in Greater Manchester, saying people \u201csee in him someone who is on their side, someone who is delivering those Labour values and those Labour policies\u201d.<\/p>\n

She added: \u201cWe have to draw on that, make use of Andy Burnham, but also draw on that and reflect on how we could do that better nationally and better as a Government.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd I know from talking to Keir many, many times over recent weeks, before this byelection and since, that that is something he is very focused on doing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Burnham is understood not to have ruled out having another go at returning to parliament. \u201cWith all the chaos and turmoil, who knows what might happen. It would be foolish to say he would never,\u201d one ally said.<\/p>\n

Burnham himself is yet to comment on the result in Gorton and Denton, while Starmer has vowed to fight on despite the \u201cdisappointing\u201d outcome of the poll.<\/p>\n

Angela Rayner, the former deputy prime minister and a key figure on Labour\u2019s left, called the byelection result \u201ca wake-up call\u201d.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, the home secretary, Shabana Mahmood, is expected to warn against moving to the left in response to the byelection as she introduces legislation for tougher immigration measures next week.<\/p>\n

A source close to the home secretary told the Times: \u201cThe Labour government should not learn the wrong lessons from its recent byelection loss.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe idea that we are losing Muslim voters over immigration is just plain wrong.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Andy Burnham would have won the Gorton and Denton byelection, Labour\u2019s deputy leader said as she called for…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":450823,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[59,57,58,50,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-450822","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-united-kingdom","8":"tag-gb","9":"tag-great-britain","10":"tag-greatbritain","11":"tag-news","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom","14":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/450822","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=450822"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/450822\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/450823"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=450822"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=450822"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=450822"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}