Preventing the mayor from returning to Westminster deprives the party of its most potent candidate in Gorton and Denton
When Labour dignitaries gathered at the Titanic hotel in Liverpool on Friday night, one question loomed above all others: to change captain or not?
For many, that question has become even more pressing after Keir Starmer’s allies brutally stopped Andy Burnham’s return to Westminster before it had even begun.
There were plausible practical reasons for blocking the Greater Manchester mayor from running in the newly vacant Gorton and Denton seat: not least that the byelection to replace him would be the biggest and most expensive in modern British history.
But many Labour MPs, including Burnham acolytes and agnostics alike, view the decision as a clear attempt to save the prime minister as the party heads towards a giant political iceberg.
