The Labour mayor expects next week’s elections to be ‘challenging’ and says the PM should change tack afterwards
Andy Burnham has urged the prime minister to change course after what he expects will be a “challenging” set of results at the local elections next week.
In an interview with Bloomberg, the mayor of Greater Manchester said that “It has got to be a moment of reflection” on the cost-of-living crisis and people’s loss of faith in politics.
He said that after the local elections, Labour should start “to now pull through on a different course” and tackle the cost-of-living.
Analysis by Pollster Lord Hayward published today suggests that Labour could lose nearly 2,000 council seats next week.
Asked if Starmer should stay on if the local elections go badly for Labour, Burnham declined to say, but praised the prime minister for some of the things he has achieved so far.
Burnham said the prime minister “has already done things that I don’t feel he necessarily gets credit for”, such as renationalising passenger rail services.
He was also asked about whether he will try to run for Parliament again this year.
Referring to being blocked by Labour’s National Executive Committee from standing in the Gorton and Denton by-election, Burnham said he had already tried once this year “and it didn’t go so well”.
However, he said “I can’t remove the kind of feeling that someday I will try and go back”, adding “I’m not ruling it out”.
Burnham also said that the politics that Labour mayors have pioneered “place first, not party first — that needs to go national, and so we do need to reform Westminster”.
This week, the Times reported that Starmer has said he would block Burnham from returning to Parliament “at any cost”.
This comes after the Telegraph reported that Labour MP in Merseyside, Peter Dowd, did not deny that he would be willing to give up his seat for Burnham.
Dowd has since rejected reports that he would stand down for Burnham.
Talk about the possibility of Burnham trying to replace Starmer as leader has not died down.
This comes after he accused Starmer’s leadership of creating a “climate of fear” within Labour at the party’s conference last year, and repeatedly refused to rule out a challenge to the prime minister.
Olivia Barber is a reporter at Left Foot Forward
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