Burnham win sparks Labour leadership showdown fears

Labour’s Andy Burnham, the current mayor of Greater Manchester, has won a special election for a seat in Parliament that puts him in a position to challenge embattled Prime Minister Keir Starmer for leadership of the country. Burnham decisively won the seat of Makerfield in northwest England over Rob Kenyon of the anti-immigration party Reform UK.

The victory announced early Friday cements the status of Burnham, a 56-year-old politician nicknamed the King of the North, as the top contender to replace Starmer as leader of the Labour Party and the country.

Burnham won almost 55 per cent of the 45,510 votes cast for a field of more than a dozen candidates, over 9,000 more than runner-up Kenyon. Burnham’s victory speech left no doubt that he wants to lead the country, and not just be one of the more than 400 Labour lawmakers in the 650-seat House of Commons.

“Everyone knows that politics isn’t working,” he said. “Everyone can feel that the country isn’t where it should be. Tonight could, just could, be the turning point.”

Starmer congratulated Burnham, writing on X that voters “chose Labour’s campaign of hope and optimism over division and hate.”

But he insisted he would fight attempts to oust him.

“Yes, I will run, I will stand,” if there is a Labour leadership contest, Starmer said. “I’ve said repeatedly I’m not going to walk away from that.”

Burnham has led Manchester since 2017, overseeing rapid regeneration for the city where the Industrial Revolution was forged.