Starmer's Decision To Block Andy Burnham Means Gorton And Denton Is Now A Must-Win For Labour
In football parlance, the upcoming Gorton and Denton by-election is now a must-win for Keir Starmer. A real six-pointer if ever there was one.
The prime minister’s decision that Andy Burnham should be blocked from being Labour’s candidate means, quite simply, that the prime minister’s future will be on the ballot paper.
Bookmakers are rarely wrong, and it is significant that Labour’s odds on winning began to drift as soon as it was announced on Saturday that a sub-committee of the party’s ruling NEC had refused Burnham permission to put his name forward.
The constituency – which has been in Labour hands for nearly a century – is now a three-way marginal between Labour, Reform UK and the Greens.
A Green Party source said: “We’ve been on the doorsteps in Gorton and Denton and the Labour vote has collapsed. It’s between the Greens and Reform. This is game on.”
But a Labour MP hit back: “There are plenty of capable people in Greater Manchester. We don’t know who the other wannabe candidates are.
“Yes, Andy’s well known and liked. But that doesn’t mean he is the only person who could win the seat.”
Allowing Burnham’s name to go forward, the PM insisted on Monday, would trigger an expensive, unnecessary and unpredictable mayoral by-election in Greater Manchester if he was re-elected as an MP.
He said: “Andy Burnham’s doing a great job as the mayor of Manchester, but having an election for the mayor of Manchester when it’s not necessary would divert our resources away from the elections that we must have, that we must fight and win.
“Resources, whether that’s money or people, need to be focused on the elections that we must have, not elections that we don’t have to have. And that was the basis of the NEC decision.”
But few doubt that the real reason was Starmer’s understandable reluctance to let a man who wants his job return to Westminster to do just that.
The prime minister was ready for the backlash which followed, most of it from left-wing Labour MPs who have never supported him and who desperately want him replaced.
Kim Johnson, the MP for Liverpool Riverside, became the first to break ranks and call for the PM’s head on Monday morning.
She told Times Radio: “This just plays into the level of factionalism that has been inherent in this party for too long and it has to stop. And Keir Starmer now needs to consider his own position as leader of this party.”
Yet even some MPs who consider themselves friends of the prime minister believe he has made a huge mistake.
One told HuffPost UK: “I think this makes a leadership challenge against Keir more likely, not less – and sooner than May now. It’s really sad.”
A senior Labour insider added: “The expectation is still that he’ll survive until May, but it could all go pop before then if the by-election goes the wrong way.
Football-mad Starmer could be just one defeat away from losing the dressing room entirely.
Will the Gorton and Denton by-election signal the beginning of the end of his time in No.10?