PM Starmer vows to fight as Burnham’s win fuels Labour leadership showdown

London, June 19: 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. He is pledging to repeat his signature brand of “Manchesterism” on a national scale.
Burnham said he would work to ensure that “the name Makerfield is forever synonymous with bringing about the change this country needs.” He said Labour had “a final chance to change” and win back voters’ trust. “But it is a chance now, from this result tonight, to build a new politics based on unity and hope, turning away from the path that takes us to a divided, dark politics of the kind we see in the United States,” he said.
Starmer’s popularity has cratered since he led the centre-left Labour Party to a landslide election victory in July 2024.
He has struggled to deliver promised economic growth, repair tattered public services and ease the cost of living, and been hamstrung by repeated missteps, including his decision to appoint Peter Mandelson, a scandal-tarnished friend of Jeffrey Epstein, as the UK ambassador to the US. (AP)