Keir Starmer’s government is facing some of the worst polling that Labour has ever faced. As such, it’s unsurprising there’d be talk of a challenge to his leadership. Now, it seems like the first challenger has stepped out on to the battlefield – Andy Burnham:
NEW: A Labour MP in Manchester who is in ill health is ready to stand down in order to allow Andy Burnham to become the Labour candidate in the by-election.
The strategy is to pave the way for Burnham to become an MP so he can challenge Keir Starmer for the Labour Leadership.
— Evolve Politics (@evolvepolitics) September 13, 2025
Disasterclass
It really can’t be overstated how poorly Starmer has performed in government:
The idea that these are normal mid-term blues is pure cope. Governments do not go from winning 400+ seats to being projected to win just 80 in the space of a year. That doesn’t happen. Now it has.
Labour is in crisis but because all its MPs are Starmer’s bagmen, they don’t care
— Stats for Lefties 🍉🏳️⚧️ (@LeftieStats) September 14, 2025
Why has he done so badly? It’s a long list, but highlights include:
🚨 POLL | Reform lead by 10%
➡️ REF – 31% (+2)
🔴 LAB – 21% (-1)
🔵 CON – 18% (-)
🟠 LD – 14% (-2)
🟢 GRN – 10% (+1)Via @techneUK, 1-4 Sep (+/- vs 11 Jul) pic.twitter.com/gECuPT8chE
— Stats for Lefties 🍉🏳️⚧️ (@LeftieStats) September 12, 2025
The Telegraph has reported on Burnham’s potential leadership challenge. They also covered his new campaign group ‘Mainstream’, which is calling for wealth taxes, an end to the two-child benefit cap, and nationalising utility companies. Adding that Burnham is expected to call out Starmer at this year’s annual conference, the piece notes that Burnham is supporting Lucy Powell in the race for deputy leader.
A twist in all this is that Burnham can’t run for labour leader as mayor of Greater Manchester. To do so, he’d have to step down as mayor (or finish his term), run for office as an MP, and then run to be leader. Evolve Politics had more to say on how this could transpire:
We understand that Graham Stringer is the Labour MP considering standing down in order to let Andy Burnham become the by-election candidate.
Stringer currently serves the constituency of Blackley and Middleton South in Greater Manchester. https://t.co/KnHXxyAYD9
— Evolve Politics (@evolvepolitics) September 13, 2025
There are also now rumours that Andrew Gwynne – who was booted from the Labour Party over leaked WhatsApp messages – is preparing to resign his seat in order to let Andy Burnham run.
Labour figures close to Starmer are said to be begging Gwynne not to trigger a by-election. https://t.co/KnHXxyBwsH
— Evolve Politics (@evolvepolitics) September 13, 2025
While the above suggests things could move quickly, it’s worth bearing in mind that Burnham has stated an intention to finish his term as Greater Manchester Mayor, which will be in May 2028. You can see why he’d want to stay, as he’s one of the few politicians who seems to be making large scale projects happen in the UK, such as the expanded Bee Network of public transport:
GM is growing fast.
We will expand @BeeNetwork over the next decade to meet the needs of our bigger economy.
BUT
There’s a limit to what we can do on a congested surface.
It’s why I am asking TfGM to start planning for an underground for GM around a remodelled Piccadilly. pic.twitter.com/k2ozNWw6Wj
— Andy Burnham (@AndyBurnhamGM) July 10, 2025
You could see why Burnham would rather stay in Manchester. At the same time, it’s entirely possible that if he leaves it too late, the Labour Party will be unsalvageable (some think it’s too far gone already, of course, but presumably the Labour mayor of Greater Manchester isn’t one of them).
The shallow party
As Stats for Lefties noted above, Labour have over 400 MPs. Despite this, there isn’t an obvious candidate to replace Starmer within parliament. It really says something about the state of the party that not one of its MPs could step up even as Starmer is facing coverage like this day in, day out:
For the sake of completeness, here are a few more details about how the prime minister came to know about Peter Mandelson’s ruinous emails to Jeffrey Epstein.
Bloomberg sent its letter (see post below) directly to Mandelson, not the FCDO generically, on the Monday. He… https://t.co/LEhCEqcw5I
— Robert Peston (@Peston) September 13, 2025
There’s a potential problem for Burnham beyond the Labour benches, though, and that’s Reform. Here’s what Nigel Farage told the Daily Mail:
It would be an epic battle that could leave Burnham humiliated. We would give it everything that we have.
Stats for Lefties provided some data on how well Burnham could do in a by-election:
People have been asking for a projection for Blackley and Middleton South, but the problem with that is that Burnham is **so popular** in Manchester that generic voting intention does not capture his unique appeal. Hopefully the estimate above illustrates that
— Stats for Lefties 🍉🏳️⚧️ (@LeftieStats) September 13, 2025
This is all worth knowing, as although Labour are way behind Reform nationwide, that doesn’t mean they can win everywhere.
To win against Burnham, they’ll likely need a candidate with some local clout. If Reform attempt to parachute in some flash gobshite from Kent, I can’t see it going well for them. At the same time, it will go very well for us, as the stories will write themselves.
Burnham and/or bust
Some of what Burnham is proposing sounds good – particularly the wealth cuts and expanded public transport. The problem he’ll have is the party he seeks to lead.
Under Starmer, the parliamentary Labour Party has been a writhing mass of nothing without about as much backbone as a tub of worms. This will change if Burnham pursues policies which represent a genuine threat to the capitalist system we live under. After all, who could forget what happened under Corbyn:
Peter Mandelson said in 2017: “I work every single day in some small way to bring forward the end of Jeremy Corbyn’s tenure”.
He gave us Starmerism.
Before his sacking, I described him in this interview as a “disgraced figure”, because he already was:https://t.co/zO4ZFD1ilG pic.twitter.com/C3865GunTb
— Alex Nunns (@alexnunns) September 13, 2025
With hindsight, most people can see that Corbyn offered little besides Scandinavian social democracy, and that the people who opposed him – people like Peter Mandelson – were a bunch of freaks and sell outs. Given the disaster of the Starmer government, they’ll struggle to get away with the same thing again, but they will try.
Good luck to Burnham if he wants to take them on, but he shouldn’t expect any support from the left if he backs down from policies like the wealth taxes. We’ve seen where so-called ‘compromise’ gets us, and we’re wise to the game we’re playing.
Featured image Heute (license here) / Scottish Government
