If Andy Burnham has a road back to parliament to challenge Keir Starmer as Labour leader, it is a road with 6ft-deep potholes. With the right vehicle, it may be possible – but there are points at which any brave traveller might think about turning back.
For Burnham to run in Andrew Gwynne’s seat of Gorton and Denton, he would first have to stand down as mayor of Greater Manchester. This in itself is no small decision for a seat he may not get selected to fight. He would potentially cost the authority millions in running a mayoral byelection – and the party a significant sum to fight it.
Then he faces the challenge of getting selected by a panel of the party’s ruling national executive committee. Four NEC members who spoke to the Guardian gave his chances of being selected by that body as “zero”.
Starmer and Burnham have personal animosity, but that is nothing compared with the cold fury that senior figures in No 10 feel towards Burnham for what they see as his openly planning a coup against the prime minister.
The NEC’s current chair is the home secretary, Shabana Mahmood. Other MPs on the body include Ellie Reeves, the solicitor general and sister of the chancellor, and Jonathan Reynolds, the chief whip, as well as the centrists Luke Akehurst and Gurinder Singh Josan.
Many of the other members who represent Labour’s affiliates and members are from the party’s moderate wing and helped Starmer and his chief of staff, Morgan McSweeney, with his tight control of selections pre-election. There are leftwingers on the body but they are a small minority. There are also Burnham-sympathetic trade unions, as well as the deputy leader, Lucy Powell.
But anyone who may be tempted to give Burnham a route to re-election can be squeezed out of the three-person panel that decides the candidates. That is in the control of the general secretary, Hollie Ridley, a close ally of McSweeney.
There is also a new clause in Labour’s rulebook, nicknamed by some the “Burnham clause” but actually created in reaction to the election of Dan Norris as the mayor of the West of England. It says: “Directly elected mayors … must seek the express permission of the NEC … before seeking nomination as Labour candidates for the Westminster parliament.” So the NEC could deny Burnham’s run before he even reached the panel.
Burnham cannot run at the same time as being mayor of Greater Manchester, as some MPs have done in other mayoralties, because of restrictions on mayors who hold policing powers from running for parliament.
So the most that members like Powell could do – as well as MPs who are close to Burnham – is kick up a massive, destabilising public fuss. If a majority of the NEC were prepared to do this, they are able to overrule the three-person panel.
This is probably the only route now open to the mayor: to create enough discomfort to embarrass No 10 enough not to block his path. It would depend highly on whether the trade unions – who hold 14 seats on the body – want to get their hands dirty, too.
Making a fuss is a strategy that has worked before with a Downing Street famous for U-turns. But some NEC members and government sources pointed to the stance Kemi Badenoch took over Robert Jenrick’s disloyalty, which was judged by many in Westminster to have been a show of strength. Some believe Starmer could capitalise on this, rather than look weak.
Burnham could not take the Ken Livingstone route of running and winning as an independent – and he is unlikely to want to. He would be unable to join the parliamentary Labour party, and would be barred for five years for running against a Labour candidate. There is no suggestion this is a route he intends to try.
And what if Burnham surmounts all this and runs in Gorton and Denton as a Labour candidate? The seat itself is perhaps one of the more winnable ones for Labour in Greater Manchester but is by no means safe. There is a growing Reform UK vote in the seat, according to polling, and a significant Muslim population where many are still dissatisfied with Labour and Starmer.
Reform would throw the kitchen sink at the vote. There is a scenario in which Burnham risks everything and loses. But if the mayor is blocked from standing – and Labour loses – he cements his reputation as the one who consistently warns that the party is on the wrong path and who one day may force them to listen.
