Andy Burnham won the safe Labour seat of Makerfield with a majority of 9,231 – nearly double that of his predecessor – and immediately triggered a crisis that could force Keir Starmer out of Downing Street within weeks.
Speaking hours before polls closed, a Downing Street source had acknowledged rare doubt about the prime minister’s future. “Keir will fight on,” the source said, repeating the message Starmer has stuck to for weeks. “Although, that might depend on the size of the majority.”
“Andy Burnham's 9,231 majority in Makerfield puts Keir Starmer under intense pressure to resign.”
In the end, the majority was so convincing that Burnham is expected to travel to London on Monday to meet MPs in the expectation of becoming prime minister. One MP said they believed about 200 Labour MPs were prepared – if necessary – to sign Burnham’s nomination papers for a challenge.
Cabinet ministers and Labour grandees are now urging Starmer not to fight a leadership challenge and to prepare for an “orderly exit”, the Guardian understands. At least two cabinet members, Ed Miliband and Shabana Mahmood, have previously suggested the prime minister set out a timetable for his departure. One cabinet source said: “I think everyone thinks it is over and everyone wants it to be a dignified, orderly exit.”
Louise Haigh, the former transport secretary who helped run Burnham’s campaign, said on Thursday night: “I hope that [Starmer] will consider an orderly and managed transition. We have said that the party is in an existential crisis and things cannot continue.” She called on Starmer to avoid what would be a “brutal and unpleasant” leadership contest and set out his exit timetable.
Lisa Nandy, the culture secretary, said Burnham was the “only Labour politician in the country that could have pulled off that result”, adding: “That wasn’t just a win, that was an emphatic win … It was an astonishing share of the votes.”
Burnham captured 54% of the vote, finishing about 20 percentage points ahead of Reform UK – a dramatic turnaround from the local elections in the constituency, where Reform won more than half the vote and Labour trailed on 23%. Nigel Farage, the Reform leader, cannot argue he would win this seat at a general election by uniting the hard right.
Senior Labour sources said that if the prime minister did not resign over the weekend – or indicate he would allow a transition – then there would be an intervention at Tuesday’s cabinet meeting. “The prime minister cannot pull the same move again where he refuses to talk to his own cabinet about his future,” one senior source warned, adding that he risks “the same situation as Boris Johnson, where you have three education secretaries in three days.”
Starmer has insisted he will not resign and would fight any leadership contest. “If there is a contest, just to be clear with you, then, yes, I will run,” he told reporters in north London, warning such a contest would “plunge us into chaos”. But one MP close to the Burnham campaign said the prime minister needed to “get it out of his system” before reaching the “inevitable” conclusion.
After the result, Burnham said: “We must now take this up and put this country back on the right path and bring people back together and get things working properly.” With Starmer calling cabinet members on Friday to set out his determination to fight on, the question is whether his party will let him.