1 week ago
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Politics, as Lyndon B Johnson understood better than most, is not about eliminating conflict but managing it. “It’s better to have them inside the tent pissing out than outside the tent pissing in,” the former US president observed. His enduring point was that strong leaders use their parties to contain power; weak ones try to banish it. Sir Keir Starmer seems ready to make this mistake over Andy Burnham.
Reports suggest that the prime minister’s allies will block any attempt by the Manchester mayor to run in a parliamentary byelection after a Labour MP, Andrew Gwynne, resigned. Mr Burnham may be eyeing a route back to Westminster and the possibility of a future leadership challenge. But No 10 wants to stop him before he gets going. Sir Keir is not asserting authority through confrontation. He is surrendering control and accepting responsibility for the consequences.
Labour’s national executive committee, which is dominated by Sir Keir’s supporters, must give permission for a directly elected mayor to seek selection to be an MP. That discretion is now being presented as an obstacle course, with cost, a potential mayoral byelection and gender balance rules being thrown in Mr Burnham’s way. It is true that there is a chance Labour could lose the Manchester mayoralty if he were to stand down. But that underscores the message that the decision to block him is already made; the reasons can be assembled later.
The defence of such skulduggery is that discipline matters, and now is not the time for party instability. But this is a profound misreading of the political mood. Labour’s problem is not too much debate. It is a growing inability to convince large numbers of voters that it has progressive answers equal to the scale of the crises the country faces: stuttering growth, stagnant real wages, the rise of the far right and a sense that the political system itself no longer delivers.
Pushing out one of the few figures with a reputation for governing effectively and for economic seriousness makes Downing Street appear petty and fearful. Excluding Mr Burnham could leave him with little to lose by leaving Labour and standing as an independent parliamentary candidate while remaining mayor. He would be weaponising a personal popularity that Labour itself now relies on in Greater Manchester – and ensuring that a defeat for Labour would be read not as a local difficulty, but as the price of a leadership unwilling to tolerate internal dissent.
Labour is already losing socially conservative votes to Reform UK and left-liberal ones to the Greens. Driving out a politician who can bridge those divides reinforces the impression that voters and members already have about Labour: pluralism of thought is no longer welcome. Significantly, polling by More in Common shows Mr Burnham as the only senior Labour figure whose favourability rises with recognition, outperforming Sir Keir among voters that Labour has lost since 2024. Blocking him would be an electoral gamble – and the leadership would own the result.
Labour MPs and union leaders have warned against a “stitch-up” to block Mr Burnham’s selection. This does not require the leadership to endorse a rival or invite a contest. It requires judgment. Is Sir Keir now so insecure that he cannot see that power is best managed inside the tent – not driven out in the vain hope that it will disappear? One would hope not.
