Keir Starmer has cleared the air with some of his party’s most high-profile mayors after a crunch meeting in London facilitated by his new chief of staff, Sue Gray.
The Labour leader met the party’s mayors last month in King’s Cross, north London, according to several people with knowledge of the meeting, following occasional friction between him and Andy Burnham, the mayor of Greater Manchester, and Sadiq Khan, the mayor of London, in particular.
Those briefed on the meeting say the presence of Gray was key to reassuring the mayors about the Labour leader’s commitment to devolving significant political powers.
In a sign of the improved relations between the two, both Starmer and Khan agreed they needed to improve communications between their offices, according to one person who attended.
One Labour official said: “The meeting was very cordial, but there was one moment where Keir said to Sadiq he accepted the need for their offices to work better together. It felt like a nice moment of togetherness after some recent rocky relations.”
A source in Starmer’s office said: “The meeting was really positive and was a great example of how Keir’s Labour government will operate – in partnership with our elected mayors to deliver for working people.”
Speaking to the Guardian’s Politics Weekly podcast this week, Burnham acknowledged Gray had been pivotal in improving relations between his and Starmer’s teams. He said: “We’re in a good place. We’re meeting, we’re working together. There is a much better working relationship than this time last year. I appreciate it. It’s been led by Keir, but Sue Gray is making a genuine difference.”
Relations between Starmer and his party’s regionally elected politicians have at times been fractious. Earlier this year, Burnham complained that he was often the subject of negative briefing from Labour officials in Westminster, adding: “All I’ll say to them is: leave me alone. I’m out there supporting the party and working for a Labour government, as everyone is, but I’m doing my thing.”
The Greater Manchester mayor infuriated those around Starmer later in the year, however, when he admitted he would consider running again for the party’s leadership.
The decision by Starmer’s office not to allow Jamie Driscoll, Labour’s mayor in North of Tyne, to run in the new north-east region triggered a complaint from Burnham and Steve Rotheram, the mayor of the Liverpool city region. They said the party’s decision to block Driscoll without the right of appeal had been undemocratic, opaque and unfair.
Meanwhile, Labour’s loss in the Uxbridge byelection triggered similar tension with Khan’s office. Labour officials blamed the defeat on Khan’s decision to expand the Ulez clean air zone to the whole of London, with Starmer saying Labour policies should not be so controversial that they appear on Conservative leaflets.
Starmer’s words after Uxbridge irritated many in Khan’s team, who believe he should have backed Ulez and stressed instead what a difficult task it would have been to win Uxbridge, a seat the party has not won since it was created in 2010.
People close to the metropolitan mayors say relations have improved partly because of the presence of Gray, a former senior civil servant who joined Starmer’s team to get the party ready for government. During the meeting in King’s Cross, they said, Gray assured them that devolution of powers would be her top priority in her new job.
In his speech at party conference this week, Starmer said: “If we want to challenge the hoarding of potential in our economy then we must win the war against the hoarders in Westminster. Give power back and put communities in control.”
