{"id":591221,"date":"2026-05-18T20:42:10","date_gmt":"2026-05-18T20:42:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/591221\/"},"modified":"2026-05-18T20:42:10","modified_gmt":"2026-05-18T20:42:10","slug":"andy-burnham-vows-to-change-labour-in-direct-challenge-to-keir-starmer-andy-burnham","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/591221\/","title":{"rendered":"Andy Burnham vows to \u2018change Labour\u2019 in direct challenge to Keir Starmer | Andy Burnham"},"content":{"rendered":"

Andy Burnham drew the battle lines for the future of the Labour party on Monday as the Greater Manchester mayor promised he would \u201cchange Labour\u201d and win back the voters the party had lost.<\/p>\n

Burnham, who is expected to be Labour\u2019s candidate in the Makerfield byelection, claimed it would be no ordinary campaign and said he would make it about national issues where Labour<\/a> was failing, in a direct challenge to the prime minister.<\/p>\n

But a defensive Keir Starmer<\/a> said on Monday he had no intention of stepping aside should Burnham win the byelection and that he wanted to fight the next election, setting up a potentially ugly battle for the leadership.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf I get to stand, a vote for me will be a vote to change Labour, because Labour needs to change if we are to regain people\u2019s trust,\u201d Burnham said.<\/p>\n

He said his campaign in Makerfield would \u201cshow how we lift up its people and places over the next decade. It will involve action to make the basics of life more affordable, like rents, bills and fares.\u201d<\/p>\n

Allies of the mayor said he would use this week to set out his economic agenda and to forcefully close down issues that could derail his return to Westminster, including ruling out any imminent return to the EU<\/a> and recommitting to the fiscal rules on borrowing and debt.<\/p>\n

In comments designed to end a damaging row over Labour\u2019s position on Europe \u2013 but which might irk some of his backers in the party \u2013 Burnham said he did not want to restart debate about EU membership.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy view is that Brexit has been damaging, but I also believe the last thing we should do right now is rerun those arguments,\u201d he said, a direct challenge to his would-be leadership rival Wes Streeting, who said over the weekend<\/a> that the UK should seek to rejoin.<\/p>\n

He said Britain would be stuck in \u201ca permanent rut if we\u2019re just constantly arguing\u201d and said he would have a \u201crelentless domestic focus\u201d during his byelection run.<\/p>\n

Burnham\u2019s spokesperson also ruled out any further changes to Rachel Reeves\u2019s fiscal rules, including exemptions for defence spending that he had previously considered, in an effort to reassure jittery financial markets.<\/p>\n

In his speech to the Great North Investment Summit, Burnham said he would use the byelection as a platform to link local issues to his diagnosis of what had gone wrong for Labour and the country.<\/p>\n

\u201cI know what my party has offered in the past has simply not been good enough,\u201d he said. \u201cThe loss of faith of voters across the north, so many of whom once saw us as their natural party, is our fault and nobody else\u2019s.\u201d<\/p>\n

Josh Simons, the MP who resigned in order to allow Burnham to stand in his seat, officially departed the Commons on Monday, with a date for the poll expected to be confirmed on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

Starmer told staff gathered at Labour\u2019s HQ on Monday morning that they should get \u201c100% behind\u201d the party at the Makerfield byelection \u2013 where Labour will face a bitter fight with Reform UK. Nigel Farage\u2019s party is expected to announce its candidate for the seat within days and on Monday released attack ads criticising Burnham\u2019s frantic search for a byelection seat.<\/p>\n

But Starmer also suggested he would fight any attempt to depose him by Burnham \u2013 after the mayor\u2019s allies briefed that they hoped an orderly transition would take place.<\/p>\n

\u201cI do want to fight the next election,\u201d Starmer said at an event on Monday. Asked if he would fight a leadership contest if another Labour MP received enough support to mount a challenge, Starmer replied: \u201cWell, we\u2019re not at that position. But I\u2019ve said, I don\u2019t know how many times, that I\u2019m not going to walk away. I feel very strongly that I must serve the people who voted me into office.\u201d<\/p>\n

Burnham \u2013 who is still officially yet to be picked as Labour\u2019s candidate \u2013 said he wanted to turn the national spotlight on Makerfield and the north-west during his byelection campaign \u2013 saying his fight against Reform would centre on what could change for such places.<\/p>\n

\u201cI want to say sorry to the residents of the Makerfield constituency, for the circus that is about to arrive in town and some of the inconvenience they will experience as a result,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut on the other hand, I want to say this to them as well: I hope you feel it\u2019s a good thing as well, that the places that make up this constituency, long forgotten by national politics, finally are at the centre of the national debate. And for the places of this constituency again, you could read many of the similar places in yours.\u201d<\/p>\n

There is frustration among some in Labour that Streeting may have damaged Burnham and Labour\u2019s efforts to retain Makerfield with his comments about the EU.<\/p>\n

\"StarmerStarmer says he wants closer relations with EU but dismisses talk of rejoining \u2013 video<\/p>\n

No 10 said on Monday that Starmer had \u201cred lines in the manifesto that we\u2019re absolutely committed to\u201d though stressed that the prime minister was seeking a closer relationship with the EU.<\/p>\n

However, experts in Brussels are warning that the UK would not be accepted back into the union on the same terms it once enjoyed. Georg Riekeles, a former adviser on the EU\u2019s Brexit taskforce, said he expected member states would take \u201ca very warm, welcoming\u201d stance, but also a \u201chard-headed\u201d one to a British membership application.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is a strategic need for the EU and the UK to work together, but I don\u2019t think there would be an appetite for opening up new decades of British exceptionalism.\u201d<\/p>\n

Streeting, who has said he plans to campaign in Makerfield for Burnham, has been adamant he would also stand in a leadership contest.<\/p>\n

Streeting\u2019s next intervention is expected to come on Wednesday, when he hopes to use his first chance to speak in the Commons since his resignation to set out his ideas for Labour\u2019s future.<\/p>\n

One Labour source said that while Streeting\u2019s comments on Brexit were most likely said on the basis they could hamper Burnham\u2019s campaign, the view was not at all unexpected. \u201cI always thought that Wes would speak about Brexit. He\u2019s going to be campaigning from the right, so it\u2019s probably only that and Gaza which help make him sound member-friendly,\u201d they said.<\/p>\n

Allies of the former health secretary denied that his comments on Brexit were intended to undermine Burnham, and that it was simply a case of someone who had been under collective responsibility for six years having a chance to freely say what he believed.<\/p>\n

One said: \u201cThe point of the speech was to call for a proper debate of ideas, and what we stand for as a party. The reaction does reinforce Wes\u2019s critique of a culture where debate gets shut down. This government is too afraid that someone might disagree with something we do, so we end up doing nothing.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Andy Burnham drew the battle lines for the future of the Labour party on Monday as the Greater…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":591222,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[59,57,58,50,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-591221","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\/591221","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=591221"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/591221\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/591222"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=591221"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=591221"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=591221"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}