WIGAN, United Kingdom: Veteran United Kingdom Labour politician Andy Burnham emphatically won a crunch by-election on Friday (Jun 19), securing a parliamentary seat and clearing the way for a widely expected leadership challenge against beleaguered Prime Minister Keir Starmer.<\/p>\n
Burnham, a former government minister who has been Greater Manchester mayor since 2017, ensured his return to parliament by easily beating the hard-right Reform UK party’s candidate in the Makerfield constituency in northwest England.<\/p>\n
The 56-year-old long-time figure in centre-left Labour has indicated he will challenge Starmer for the party’s leadership, and to be prime minister, and needed to win the high-stakes vote to be in a position to trigger such a contest.<\/p>\n
If Starmer does leave office this year, then Britain will get its seventh prime minister in 10 years.<\/p>\n
“I do say to my own party, this is a final chance to change,” Burnham said in his acceptance speech after securing nearly 55 per cent of the vote, beating Reform’s Robert Kenyon by more than 9,000 ballots.<\/p>\n
“This is what people said directly to me on the hundreds of doorsteps that I stood on. We must hear it, we must act upon it, and we must get it right. There will be no second chance.”<\/p>\n
Burnham added: “But it is a chance now, from this result tonight”.<\/p>\n
Starmer, in office since July 2024, has been clinging to power since Labour suffered a drubbing in polls in England, Scotland and Wales last month.<\/p>\n
“KING OF THE NORTH”<\/p>\n
He has been rocked by several policy U-turns and a scandal over his appointment of ex-Jeffrey Epstein associate Peter Mandelson as the UK’s ambassador to Washington.<\/p>\n
Dozens of Labour MPs have called on Starmer to quit, and several ministers have resigned, as national surveys suggest Reform would win the next general election, expected in 2029.<\/p>\n
But the 63-year-old ex-lawyer has refused to quit, insisting his landslide election victory over the Conservatives 23 months ago gave him a five-year mandate to govern.<\/p>\n
Amid growing impatience within the centre-left ruling party, now-former Labour MP Josh Simons stood down in Makerfield so that Burnham could try to return to parliament and run for leader.<\/p>\n
The unprecedented move thrust the little-known political district into the spotlight, handing its electorate of roughly 77,000 people an outsized say in influencing Starmer’s fate.<\/p>\n
Surveys show that Burnham – nicknamed the “King of the North” for winning three consecutive mayoral terms – is Labour’s most popular politician and would win a direct vote against Starmer amongst the party membership.<\/p>\n
Thursday’s vote for the Makerfield seat, where Labour had held a majority of just 5,300 votes, was seen as a test case of whether Burnham is able to defeat Reform, led by anti-immigrant firebrand Nigel Farage.<\/p>\n
The area is predominantly white and working-class, making it fertile territory for the hard-right group, which has led Labour in national surveys for well over a year.<\/p>\n
Local plumber Kenyon’s campaign was dogged by past offensive remarks about women, while the fringe hard-right Restore Britain party dented Reform’s vote by taking just over 3,000 votes.<\/p>\n
“CHANGE”<\/p>\n
Turnout was 59 per cent, the highest in a by-election for seven years, with more than 45,000 votes cast.<\/p>\n
Burnham, an MP from 2001 to 2017, hails from Labour’s so-called soft-left wing and has been an outspoken critic of Starmer’s more-centrist rule.<\/p>\n
All eyes now turn to when he will make his move against Starmer, as Labour will now also face a tough fight to replace him as mayor.<\/p>\n
Burnham is due to be sworn in as a member of parliament on Monday. Under Labour party rules, leadership candidates must be an MP.<\/p>\n
He will be able to easily muster the support of 81 of Labour’s 400-plus MPs – the minimum needed to kick-start a contest.<\/p>\n
Starmer has repeatedly said he will fight any challenge, but Burnham allies are hopeful ministers can persuade the prime minister to step down instead.<\/p>\n
On Wednesday, Starmer said he was willing to offer Burnham a “big role” in his government, as he tried to ward off the expected challenge, an idea reportedly rejected by Burnham’s team.<\/p>\n
Ex-health minister Wes Streeting, from Labour’s right wing, has said Starmer should be given “space over the weekend” to consider his future.<\/p>\n
Streeting has also vowed to join any race for the top job but could end up striking a deal with Burnham to avoid a divisive contest.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WIGAN, United Kingdom: Veteran United Kingdom Labour politician Andy Burnham emphatically won a crunch by-election on Friday (Jun…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":646634,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[59,57,58,420,50,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-646633","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-kingdom","tag-gb","tag-great-britain","tag-greatbritain","tag-keir-starmer","tag-news","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/646633","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=646633"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/646633\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/646634"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=646633"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=646633"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=646633"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}