Andy Burnham sweeps back into Westminster on Monday afternoon after a nine-year absence, his by-election landslide in Makerfield uncorking a decade of Labour Party dissent that now threatens to force Keir Starmer from office. The former Manchester mayor won with a majority of more than 9,000 votes, and the path to No 10 has never been clearer.
For the third time in four years, Britain appears on the brink of a prime minister announcing their plan to leave office – not because they lost a general election, but because their own party concluded they would be better off without them. Many inside government and the wider Labour Party expect Starmer to say just this, perhaps as soon as Monday morning.
“Keir Starmer is expected to announce his resignation as PM as Andy Burnham returns to Parliament after a by-election landslide.”
The prime minister spent the weekend bunkered down at Chequers, weighing up his options. At least four cabinet ministers, including the home and foreign secretaries, have told him he should set a timetable for his departure. Business Secretary Peter Kyle, asked whether the party was entering a period of transition, told the BBC: “I don’t want to come on here and be delusional that there is no process, that there are no forces at work that are challenging the Prime Minister as leader. That is clearly the case.”
Starmer had tried to raise the bar for potential successors, blocking Burnham’s first attempt to contest a Westminster seat earlier this year. But the scale of Burnham’s victory – and the fact he proved he can beat Reform UK – has made him the hot favourite among Labour MPs frightened by Reform’s recent electoral success.
As the prime minister mulled his future, Burnham’s own political stances remain under scrutiny. He has backed Shabana Mahmood’s immigration reforms, but in a Radio 4 interview on 20 November he said: “I do have a concern about leaving people without the ability to settle… That might limit the Home Office’s ability to deal with the backlog.” By 9 June, he had shifted, saying: “We do need to go further… We need to make greater use of detention so that people who have got no basis for a claim are not actually admitted to the country.” On fiscal policy, he told the Institute for Fiscal Studies on 20 January that Britain is in a “low growth doom loop” and “in hock to the bond markets”, yet on 18 May he said: “I support the fiscal rules. There needs to be a plan to get debt down.”
One ally of Starmer told The Mirror: “My understanding is that PM is still genuinely deciding and taking advice.” Reports suggest his exit timetable could include staying in post until Labour’s conference in September. But with Burnham expected to be sworn in as an MP on Monday, and a photo planned with Labour colleagues, the pressure is mounting. What does the prime minister say, and when?