Monday 18 May 2026 10:48 am
WARRINGTON, ENGLAND - MAY 16: Andy Burnham goes for his morning run on May 16, 2026 in Warrington, United Kingdom. On Thursday, Josh Simons announced he would step down as Labour MP for Makerfield, allowing Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham to run in the resulting by-election that will take place. Burnham confirmed he intends to stand in the contest which would offer him a route to return to parliament where he could potentially challenge Prime Minister Keir Starmer's leadership. (Photo by Gary Oakley/Getty Images)
Labour is conducting Schrodinger’s leadership election and it’s increasingly looking like I, Claudius performed b y the cast of Up Pompeii, says Eliot WilsonFollowing Labour’s punishment beatings in the local and devolved parliamentary elections, the guerrilla war over Sir Keir Starmer’s leadership of the party has finally erupted into open warfare.Or has it? Last week, politicos were on the edges of their seats: Wes Streeting, the ambitious, neo-Blairite health and social care secretary, would walk out of government and launch a bid for Starmer’s job. On Thursday, Streeting did indeed resign, and his long letter to the Prime Minister contained some savage barbs.“Where we need vision, we have a vacuum. Where we need direction, we have drift. This was underscored by your speech on Monday. Leaders take responsibility, but too often that has meant other people falling on their swords. You also need to listen to your colleagues, including backbenchers, and the heavy-handed approach to dissenting voices diminishes our politics.”Streeting concluded that he had lost confidence in Starmer’s ability to lead, that there should be an election and “it needs to be broad, and it needs the best possible field of candidates”. And then came… silence. He did not submit a nomination to trigger a contest but is currently in freeze-frame, like the Grand Old Duke of York at the top of the hill, without issuing an order to fire.There are other elements at work here. Ever since the molecule-deep shine wore off Sir Keir Starmer’s premiership in the riot-wracked summer of 2024, many Labour MPs have looked longingly northwards at the Mayor of Greater Manchester, Andy Burnham. He has become the King over the Water, possessing seemingly every desirable trait that Starmer so obviously lacks: charisma, popularity and a record of getting things done in Manchester, like an integrated transport network and securing financial support for communities affected by the Covid-19 pandemic.When a party turns against its leader, there are always factions who dream of a saviour, however implausible. In the 2010s, many Conservative MPs pinned their hopes on Boris Johnson, an indelible reminder to be careful what you wish for.As Edward Heath’s tenure thrashed itself to death in 1975, and before Margaret Thatcher was taken seriously as a possible successor, an extraordinary litany of candidates was recited: Sir Christopher Soames, Churchill’s son-in-law, out of Parliament for a decade and serving as Vice-President of the European Commission; Edward du Cann, Chairman of the 1922 Committee and a charming but slippery financier whose apocryphal response to being asked the hour was “What time would you like it to be, dear boy?”; Enoch Powell, by then an Ulster Unionist MP, too rigorous and unsparing ever to be a party leader.Time for Burnham?Mayor Burnham is not quite so far-fetched a prospect for the top job, but there is one explicit and unavoidable hurdle: only MPs are eligible to stand for the Labour Party leadership. While Burnham was barred from seeking the nomination for February’s by-election in Gorton and Denton, another opportunity has appeared. Josh Simons, the clever but sometimes witless MP for Makerfield who quit as a Cabinet Office minister after allegations of smearing journalists when he was running the Labour Together think tank, has produced a sword upon which to fall and will quit the Commons.
