{"id":584580,"date":"2026-05-15T01:07:11","date_gmt":"2026-05-15T01:07:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/584580\/"},"modified":"2026-05-15T01:07:11","modified_gmt":"2026-05-15T01:07:11","slug":"who-is-josh-simons-the-labour-mp-who-quit-for-andy-burnham-labour","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/584580\/","title":{"rendered":"Who is Josh Simons, the Labour MP who quit for Andy Burnham? | Labour"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cHe\u2019s burned bright and briefly,\u201d says one MP of Josh Simons. At the age of 32, the Makerfield MP has already run a thinktank, held a ministerial job, resigned that position in a scandal<\/a>, and now quit parliament to make way for Andy Burnham.<\/p>\n

Simons has been supporting Burnham as a potential successor to Keir Starmer for some time. But few expected the ambitious Labour<\/a> figure to give up his seat, having only won it two years ago and moved his family to the constituency.<\/p>\n

In his resignation letter, he said he was putting his constituents first, as there needed to be a \u201cshock to the Westminster system\u201d.<\/p>\n

He was also one of the first to publicly call on the prime minister to set a timetable for his departure after the local and devolved election results \u2013 even though he previously ran thinktank Labour Together that helped put Starmer in power and fuelled its policy programme.<\/p>\n

Burnham supporters have been gushing about Simons\u2019 decision, with one saying he had \u201cliterally put the party and the country first \u2013 like everyone else lectures we have to do \u2013 he\u2019s done it\u201d. Simons, whose wife recently had their third child, was showered with praise from Burnham, who hailed \u201cthe difficult decision and sacrifice that he and his family are making\u201d.<\/p>\n

However, many MPs had only recently been disparaging Simons for having tangled up the government in a scandal over gathering intelligence on journalists.<\/p>\n

After entering parliament, Simons had a meteoric ascent, quickly becoming a ministerial aide and then being promoted to a job in the Cabinet Office in September last year. But he resigned from Starmer\u2019s government in February over his role in Labour Together\u2019s commissioning of the public affairs agency APCO to investigate journalists\u2019 reporting on the thinktank. The Guardian revealed<\/a> Simons had personally commissioned and reviewed APCO\u2019s work on journalists looking into the group\u2019s funding.<\/p>\n

He said he was \u201csurprised\u201d and \u201cfurious\u201d at the PR report on the journalists but he eventually quit as a Cabinet Office minister, saying his position in office had become \u201ca distraction from this government\u2019s important work\u201d.<\/p>\n

His re-emergence as a key player in the drama over Starmer\u2019s leadership was unexpected, but those who have worked with him say he has sharp political antennae.<\/p>\n

With family from Bury, Greater Manchester<\/a>, he studied at the University of Cambridge before working for the Labour party, and subsequently as a research scientist on artificial intelligence at Meta. In 2022, he joined Labour Together as its director, before his last-minute selection for the Makerfield seat two years later.<\/p>\n

One Labour source said: \u201cJosh is immensely bright and incredibly hard working. In the end, it was his frustrations with the Labour party and his zeal for taking on the antisemites of the hard-left that were his undoing. He never got the support he deserved for all he put in.\u201d<\/p>\n

However, his past at Labour Together, which had at one point been a vehicle to organise against Jeremy Corbyn, is not likely to be welcome by many on the left of the party if he becomes a core part of Burnham\u2019s operation. He is also seen by many colleagues as being close to the home secretary, Shabana Mahmood, who is more on the Blue Labour right of the party than Burnham, who has become the darling of the soft left.<\/p>\n

One MP who supports Burnham said: \u201cSimons should never have been an MP.\u201d Another said it was a mystery how the left and centre of the party would work together under a campaign to make Burnham leader, saying: \u201cIt\u2019s a big unknown \u2026 Josh is Shabana Mahmood\u2019s beast \u2013 lock, stock and barrel. I guess we just have to see what lands where.\u201d<\/p>\n

Many colleagues think this is not the last people will hear of Simons. Despite his plan to leave parliament, Simons\u2019 letter to his constituents hints he will remain close to Burnham: \u201cIf you place your trust in Andy, we will restore our towns to the places they should be, rip up the existing system and build a new one that puts you at the heart of it. With Andy, I will fight for that, and for you, every step of the way.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cHe\u2019s burned bright and briefly,\u201d says one MP of Josh Simons. At the age of 32, the Makerfield…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":584581,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[59,57,58,50,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-584580","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\/584580","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=584580"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/584580\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/584581"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=584580"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=584580"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=584580"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}