{"id":586119,"date":"2026-05-15T20:46:09","date_gmt":"2026-05-15T20:46:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/586119\/"},"modified":"2026-05-15T20:46:09","modified_gmt":"2026-05-15T20:46:09","slug":"andy-burnham-will-push-to-become-pm-before-labour-conference-allies-say-andy-burnham","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/586119\/","title":{"rendered":"Andy Burnham will push to become PM before Labour conference, allies say | Andy Burnham"},"content":{"rendered":"

Andy Burnham will push to become prime minister in time to address Labour\u2019s autumn party conference in Liverpool, his supporters have said.<\/p>\n

The Greater Manchester mayor cleared his first hurdle to becoming the candidate in the Makerfield byelection on Friday when Labour\u2019s ruling body gave him permission<\/a> to stand for the seat.<\/p>\n

If confirmed as Labour\u2019s choice, he will need to win a difficult contest for the Greater Manchester seat in mid to late June. Support for Reform UK surged in the area at the local elections.<\/p>\n

With the byelection most likely to take place on 18 June, some of Burnham\u2019s supporters believe he has a path to becoming prime minister before parliament breaks for the summer recess, but sources close his campaign believe his preference is for a longer timeline.<\/p>\n

His prize for winning a leadership contest in the summer would be a victorious homecoming and what one supporter described as a \u201cnatural moment\u201d for a transfer of power in Manchester.<\/p>\n

Another source close to Burnham said he did not want to get ahead of himself and was concentrating on the byelection ahead.<\/p>\n

His route back to parliament was opened up by the resignation of his ally Josh Simons on Thursday after other contenders to replace Keir Starmer<\/a> backed away from triggering a contest against the prime minister this week.<\/p>\n

Labour\u2019s deputy leader, Lucy Powell, who will be the political lead for the party in the byelection, told the Guardian she expected it \u201cto really galvanise people from right across the party and we\u2019ll absolutely be throwing everything at it\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cShould he be our candidate, Andy\u2019s story, Andy\u2019s narrative, Andy\u2019s connection to the place will absolutely be at the forefront of it all,\u201d she said. \u201cHe is very much what keeps a seat like that in play for us.\u201d<\/p>\n

She described the byelection as a \u201cstraight fight between us and Reform and exactly the sort of seat \u2013 a community and a place that perhaps once had more pride in itself than it does today \u2013 that you know feels that mainstream politics has not been listening to it enough and I think that\u2019s why someone like Andy is so popular in a place like Makerfield\u201d.<\/p>\n

Starmer may still put up a fight against being replaced in No 10 despite having lifted his previous objections to Burnham seeking to re-enter parliament after a disastrous week in which more than 80 of his MPs called for him to quit.<\/p>\n

Steve Reed, one of his closest allies in the cabinet, conceded<\/a> on Friday that the prime minister was unpopular, but insisted Labour should not repeat the same pattern of changing leaders that damaged the Conservatives.<\/p>\n

\"BurnhamBurnham byelection: the small town that could decide next PM \u2013 The Latest<\/p>\n

Wes Streeting, who resigned as health secretary this week but stopped short of challenging Starmer, gave his backing to Burnham standing on Friday. \u201cWe need our best players on the pitch,\u201d he said. \u201cThere is no doubt that Andy Burnham is one of them.\u201d<\/p>\n

It is still possible that he or other cabinet ministers could push for a full leadership contest rather than a Burnham coronation if he wins the byelection.<\/p>\n

Burnham is expected to set out his vision of \u201cManchesterism\u201d next week \u2013 a politics of making people feel rooted and invested in their local areas \u2013 and how it could apply to the whole country.<\/p>\n

Analysis by Survation shared with the Guardian suggests that with Burnham as the candidate Labour would narrowly beat Reform by 45% to 43% in Makerfield, compared with another Labour candidate attracting 27% versus 53% for Reform.<\/p>\n

The results were extrapolated using modelling from official election results, census data and survey data from the recent Gorton and Denton byelection.<\/p>\n

In something of a blow to Labour, the Green party pledged on Friday to stand<\/a> in the seat, a move criticised by the party\u2019s former leader Caroline Lucas.<\/p>\n

The contest has the potential to be a symbolic battle for the future of the country, with Nigel Farage\u2019s Reform saying it will be fighting for the seat as hard as possible. The party\u2019s HQ is expected to select its candidate and there is understood to be concern that it will face competition for votes from a candidate put forward by Rupert Lowe\u2019s rightwing party Restore Britain.<\/p>\n

Neal Lawson, a close adviser to Burnham, said he believed the Greater Manchester mayor had unique electoral appeal in that he \u201cappeals to both Green voters and Reform voters, and no one else does it\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s always been confident about any byelection in the north-west,\u201d he said. \u201cI think he sees in the seat that he\u2019s got an opportunity to take on Farage and take on the right \u2013 and win.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a real change. It\u2019s not cosmetic. This is deep political, democratic, economic, social change. I think he can win on that ticket and through his commitment to PR [proportional representation], to pluralism, to new politics, he can win over the Greens as well.\u201d<\/p>\n

Some MPs are extremely nervous about what could happen if Burnham were to lose the seat and expressed dismay that he had not engineered a potentially easier battle.<\/p>\n

One Labour MP described Makerfield as the \u201cabsolute ground zero of red wall Reform anger\u201d and argued that if the local election results were replicated Burnham as the candidate would need to take almost every vote off the Greens and Lib Dems as well as winning additional votes from Reform.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Andy Burnham will push to become prime minister in time to address Labour\u2019s autumn party conference in Liverpool,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":586120,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[59,57,58,50,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-586119","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\/586119","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=586119"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/586119\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/586120"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=586119"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=586119"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=586119"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}