Labour's Andy Burnham Dilemma

by Simon Robinson, 25 Jan 2026

This morning Labour is gripped by the question of whether Andy Burnham should be allowed to stand as their candidate in the upcoming Denton and Gorton by-election. I can claim some emotional interest in this – I was in the Labour Party for many years before I ended up in the LibDems. Back in 2015, when Labour was engulfed in that infamous leadership contest in which Jeremy Corbyn stood and unexpectedly won, Andy Burnham was also a candidate for Labour leader. I recall going to see him speak at a hustings in Greenwich and he did come across very well. I ended up enthusiastically voting for him – partly because I was impressed by him and partly because I was appalled by the prospect of Corbyn becoming leader. Yes, I was one of the minority of Labour members who didn’t vote for Corbyn… I occasionally get some things right! 😉

Fast forward to today and Andy is now Labour’s Mayor of Greater Manchester. By all accounts he’s been a popular and successful mayor with a reputation for getting things done and standing up for the region. Now he wants to get back into Parliament. And he has the perfect opportunity with the impending byelection in the safe Manchester Labour seat of Denton and Gorton (The current MP is resigning due to – shall we politely say – personal indiscretions). The practical problem is that you cannot be an MP and Mayor of a Combined Authority at the same time. That is legally not allowed – and even if it were allowed, it would be ridiculous to attempt to do both jobs simultaneously. To be clear, that is only a problem if he actually becomes an MP: It’s completely legally allowed for him to stand as a candidate in the by-election - it’s just that if he wins, then he’d have to resign as mayor. Add to that there’s a political problem for Keir Starmer: Andy Burnham as an MP would be in a good position to challenge Keir Starmer for the Prime Minister’s job. By all reports, he’s a lot more popular than Starmer, and while he hasn’t actually directly said that he wants to challenge Starmer, no-one really doubts that he is eyeing up the top job.

At the time of me writing this, Andy Burnham has asked for permission from Labour’s National Executive Committee (NEC – it’s something like Labour’s equivalent of the LibDems’ Federal Board) to apply to stand for the seat. That permission is required according to Labour’s rules because of Burnham’s position as mayor. If the NEC say, ‘yes’, that doesn’t automatically make Burnham Labour’s candidate: It simply means that he’ll be on the list of people from whom local Labour members in Denton and Gorton can choose who they want to stand in the by-election. Having said that, Andy is so popular locally that I suspect if he is given permission to go on the list, it’s practically a shoe-in that local members will choose him.

The NEC is controlled by Keir Starmer’s allies so they have an obvious vested interest in refusing permission in order to protect Starmer. Of course it would be politically inept to refuse permission on the sole grounds that Andy might later stand against Starmer for the Labour leadership – that would just be so obviously undemocratic and Machiavellian. But the fact that he’d have to resign as Mayor of Manchester if elected MP, resulting in an expensive mayoral by-election, would provide them with excellent cover for refusing him.

So politically it looks like this:

• Allow Andy to stand in Denton and Gorton, and you have the benefit that, as a well known and popular local figure, he’s much more likely to hold the seat against Reform than any other possible Labour candidate.

BUT:

• If he triggers a Mayoral by-election, there has to be at least a small risk that Labour will lose the mayoralty. Having said that, we should acknowledge that Manchester is not a very strong area for Reform. Back in 2024, they polled far lower in Manchester than most other Labour/’red wall’ areas. Labour ought to have a much better chance of holding on here than they would in – say – much of Yorkshire or the Midlands.
• And if Andy gets into Parliament, Keir Starmer’s position as leader of the Labour Party looks weaker. But since there are probably many people in the Labour Party who would see Andy Burnham as a likely stronger, more capable, prime minister than Keir Starmer has proved to be (and more likely to win the likely 2029 general election for Labour), that might not be a bad thing for Labour. So what should Labour do?

Well from a LibDem perspective, the answer is obvious. We do after all believe in local democracy and in local communities: The LibDem answer would surely be that it’s up to local Labour members in Denton and Gorton whether they want Andy as a Candidate. The NEC should therefore allow him to put his name forward to allow local members the maximum freedom to choose. As for all the pros and cons of Andy as a candidate: Well, those are surely things that the local Labour members, embedded in their local community, can be trusted to take account of and decide for themselves? That is after all how democracy is supposed to work. (I probably should qualify that by, as long as there is nothing untoward in the working of the local party, for example, if it’s been infiltrated by some unrepresentative group: That kind of thing would not be unknown to Labour, but I’ve not heard any stories that that’s the case here). Likewise, if there’s a risk that he might challenge Starmer: Well, if Starmer believes in democracy then that’s a risk he should be prepared to take. The proper response to the risk of someone challenging you isn’t to block democracy: It’s to make the effort to do your own job better so that people are less likely to want to get rid of you!

What will happen? I guess we’ll see later today whether Labour under Keir Starmer can accept this bit of democracy, or whether it’s back to control-freakery….

Stop Press…. Andy Burnham Blocked!

And guess what… as I was finalizing this article, news came in that Labour’s NEC has in fact blocked Andy Burnham’s application to be considered as a candidate in the by-election. The reports are that of the 10 NEC members voting, only Lucy Powell voted to allow Burnham to stand. Keir Starmer himself is on the NEC and voted to block Burnham. No vested interest at all there…!

It seems Labour’s tradition of centralised authoritarian control is undimmed.