Starmer's grip on power slips as Burnham's by-election win fuels 'coronation' talk

Sir Keir Starmer spent the weekend at Chequers with his wife, but there was little respite. The prime minister’s political fate was being sealed in the constituency of Makerfield, where Andy Burnham’s by-election victory early on Friday had triggered what Labour MPs now describe as an inevitable endgame. “Delusional,” one MP texted a BBC correspondent about Starmer’s insistence he could survive. The word echoed across Labour factions, generations and ministerial ranks. The man who not even two years ago brought the party back to government after 14 years in the wilderness had become, in the eyes of his own side, a loser. “The herd isn't just moving, it's stampeding,” the former Labour deputy leader Harriet Harman told Sky News. Burnham, the Greater Manchester mayor, had shown he could beat Reform, until now a deadly threat to Labour. He was popular in the country, seasoned as a former health secretary, culture secretary and Treasury minister. Most of all, said one backer, he had “a capacity to make people feel good” – something Westminster had forgotten. The result sparked near-unity among MPs that Burnham’s destination of Downing Street was assured. The word increasingly used was “coronation” – a leadership contest where Burnham would be the only candidate with the required 81 MPs and would be elected by acclamation, as Gordon Brown was in 2007. One complicating factor was Wes Streeting, who quit as health secretary in protest at Starmer’s leadership last month. Streeting insisted he had the backing of 81 MPs himself. But he was under pressure from allies to tuck in behind Burnham for a swift transition. Starmer, however, reiterated on Friday that he would be a candidate. Under Labour rules, as incumbent he is automatically placed on the ballot, guaranteeing a vote of party members. A document circulated among his supporters warned against division: “When the Tories lost the last election, Britons were most likely to see them as ‘only interested in themselves’, ‘dishonest’ and ‘divided’. We cannot allow ourselves to be tarnished in the same way.” But privately, even some Starmer backers conceded the game was up. One source claimed conversations with cabinet ministers were no longer about whether he had authority, but the arguments he’d make in a leadership race. “On Saturday he phoned his closest allies and said, ‘I’m sure I could win,’” a government insider told the BBC. Yet a Labour adviser’s exasperation summed up the mood: “We promised people we weren’t going to do this.” Burnham, meanwhile, was spending the weekend with his family. His victory speech had called for an education system that “offers a path for everybody, academic and technical in equal balance”. He had told The i Paper he wanted to overhaul SEND support, warning that children “find their needs are not met and they drift away from the labour market”. But for now, the question was simpler: how soon would his path lead to Downing Street? The New Statesman urged Starmer not to “take that hope from them” by fighting – a fight he would lose, it said, and not be forgiven.