{"id":457619,"date":"2026-03-04T20:03:08","date_gmt":"2026-03-04T20:03:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/457619\/"},"modified":"2026-03-04T20:03:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-04T20:03:08","slug":"andy-burnham-criticises-bankruptcy-of-labour-approach-to-campaigning-labour","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/457619\/","title":{"rendered":"Andy Burnham criticises \u2018bankruptcy\u2019 of Labour approach to campaigning | Labour"},"content":{"rendered":"

Andy Burnham has reignited hostilities with Keir Starmer\u2019s Labour leadership, criticising what he described as the \u201cbankruptcy\u201d of the party\u2019s approach to campaigning, a week after it lost the previously safe seat of Gorton and Denton.<\/p>\n

The mayor of Greater Manchester<\/a> and former MP, regarded as a rival to Starmer, said Labour\u2019s campaigning style prevented it from connecting with non-Labour voters and other progressive parties, as he evoked the system of clipboard-wielding canvassers going door to door with records of previous Labour supporters.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat I want to say today is that the time has most definitely come for a serious conversation about our political system and its pervading culture, particularly so in the aftermath of the Gorton and Denton byelection,\u201d Burnham said in a speech at the British Library in London that reignited speculation he has not given up on replacing Starmer.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt revealed the full depth of the chasm between people and Westminster politics. I don\u2019t think anybody can seriously dispute that statement.\u201d<\/p>\n

Burnham was speaking a week on from Labour\u2019s loss of its once safe seat in the Manchester constituency, after Starmer and his allies blocked him from standing to be the party\u2019s candidate.<\/p>\n

Labour\u2019s deputy leader and Burnham ally, Lucy Powell, has said he would have won the contest<\/a>, in which the Green arty\u2019s candidate, Hannah Spencer, was victorious. Labour came third, with Reform UK in second.<\/p>\n

Burnham described polling by More in Common that found a majority of people did not think the cost of living crisis would ever end as \u201ccode red for Westminster politics\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is getting extremely dangerous, and change in our political system and culture is desperately needed,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

The mayor answered a number of questions after the speech, which took place at an event organised by the Centre for Cities, but remained silent when Andrew Carter, the thinktank\u2019s chief executive, said that a question about allegations of so-called \u201cfamily voting\u201d irregularities did not fall under the event\u2019s \u201crules\u201d.<\/p>\n

In his speech, Burnham launched a withering attack on his colleagues in the UK government, claiming that Westminster and Whitehall no longer appeared to want to \u201cshare growth\u201d with regions such as the north of England.<\/p>\n

He also prompted laughter from the audience when he said he wanted to turn Manchester into Britain\u2019s \u201cleading green city\u201d, before adding: \u201cSome might say it took a step that way recently.\u201d<\/p>\n

Burnham said he wanted to use the speech to lay out for the first time in detail his vision of what he described as \u201cManchesterism\u201d \u2013 a way of governing that has become associated with the former MP\u2019s apparent pitch for the Labour leadership but which he identified as \u201cthe opposite of Westminsterism\u201d.<\/p>\n

However, he also projected a frustration with Whitehall, railing against what he said was \u201cthe resistance of the system to free us up more\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cAfter 10 years of devolution they are still pushing us away as if they know all the answers, and still they hold on and refuse to devolve,\u201d he told the audience<\/p>\n

\u201cI am getting to the point where I refuse to spend more of my time making the case. It just makes you think they don\u2019t actually want growth everywhere. They just want to hold on to things down here. We need Whitehall reform but we also need Westminster reform.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Andy Burnham has reignited hostilities with Keir Starmer\u2019s Labour leadership, criticising what he described as the \u201cbankruptcy\u201d of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":457620,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[59,57,58,50,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-457619","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-kingdom","tag-gb","tag-great-britain","tag-greatbritain","tag-news","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/457619","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=457619"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/457619\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/457620"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=457619"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=457619"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=457619"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}