Scale of Burnham’s triumph piles pressure on Starmer to take a ‘dignified exit’

Andy Burnham’s aim after his stunning byelection victory in Makerfield is to be in No 10 by September in time for his leadership to be endorsed by the Labour party conference. That now looks all but inevitable, but it is still unclear what happens between now and then – and things could get very messy.

The next few days will be critical. “Andy’s not going to be marching down Downing Street in his hobnail boots this weekend,” one ally says. When I interviewed Burnham last month, he told me that if he won in Makerfield he would feel a responsibility to campaign for his successor as Greater Manchester mayor in the byelection at the end of July. “That would be a really big focus obviously, we’ve built something really precious in Manchester,” he said. Burnham also needs time to think through his policy platform and team.

But those around the new MP for Makerfield also know they need to keep up the momentum. They expect Labour MPs, cabinet ministers, trade union leaders and party donors to put pressure on Keir Starmer this weekend to set out a timetable for his departure with an “orderly transition” planned for after the summer.

Burnham has already secured the 81 nominations needed to trigger a leadership contest and is ready to present a list of MPs willing to back him to the prime minister in the hope of persuading Starmer to stand down without a fight. Allies say he will reject any offer of a cabinet job.

If the Labour leader does not agree to a “dignified exit” over the next 72 hours, things are likely to come to a head at next Tuesday’s cabinet meeting when ministers are expected to tell him the game is up. “The size and scale of the win makes all this much harder to resist,” one Burnham supporter said.

Another Labour source said: “John Healey’s resignation has changed the views of a lot of people who weren’t previously willing to tell Starmer to go. Stability in a precarious world was the one card he had left but now the defence secretary has quit because he can’t defend the country. Ministers will appeal to the prime minister over the weekend and if that doesn’t work then cabinet on Tuesday is the chance for them to tell him the game is up.”

Starmer is digging in. This morning he said he would be a candidate in any Labour leadership contest, insisting he has “more to do”. He told reporters: “If there is a contest then yes, I will run, I will stand and I’ve said repeatedly I’m not going to walk away from that.”

In a call with Labour staff this lunchtime he said the party needed to “pull together” and “take the fight” to Reform. “The one thing we have to avoid doing is plunging our party and our country into chaos by turning on each other,” he said.

His supporters say the prime minister has a mandate from the British public won in a landslide victory less than two years ago. They argue that the two recent byelections show there is a “progressive majority” to stop Reform – in Gorton and Denton it coalesced around the Green party, and in Makerfield it united around Labour. But that ignores the fact that Burnham won by promising to “change Labour and change the country”. He united the anti-Farage forces only because he was explicit about his intentions to challenge the prime minister if he became an MP. In this weirdest and most consequential of byelections the message was “vote Labour to get rid of Starmer”.

And Burnham did not just beat Reform – creating what his team have been calling “proof of concept” for how to take on Farage – he completely demolished his rivals, securing more votes than all the other parties put together in a constituency that only a few weeks ago abandoned Labour in the local elections.

Support is slipping away from the prime minister, like sand through an egg timer.

Harriet Harman, Labour’s former deputy leader appointed by Starmer just a few weeks ago as his adviser on women and girls, appeared to concede that his premiership was coming to an end when she said that Labour MPs should now be given the chance to choose who leads them. Starmer, Burnham, and Wes Streeting must, she told Radio 4’s Today programme, agree the process for resolving the leadership crisis between them. “We cannot have a protracted period of wrangling,” she said. “You can’t govern without the support of Labour MPs.”

Patrick Hurley, Labour MP for Southport, who was previously loyal to Starmer, was among the first to say he has now decided that the prime minister must go. “We can’t continue to tell the electorate that they’re wrong,” he told the BBC. The question is how many more Labour MPs have reached the same conclusion? If Burnham manages to secure the support of more than half of the Parliamentary Labour Party – 201 MPs – it is hard to see how Starmer could stay.

Burnham, dressed in a T-shirt and flanked by Count Binface and a furry fox, said at his acceptance speech in Makerfield last night, “Everyone knows that politics isn’t working. Everyone can feel the country isn’t where it should be,” he said. “Tonight could be the turning point.”

The rules of the House of Commons determine that he will have to wear a suit and tie in his new job and if he gets to No 10 he will go from being the outsider to the establishment. In our interview he said he was determined to “keep the insurgent approach” if he returned to Westminster, but that is so much harder for an incumbent.

Photograph by Isabel Infantes/ Pool via Getty Images