Bev Craig: Andy Burnham’s ‘protégé’ who wants to be more powerful than he was

With the former mayor of Greater Manchester now running the country, voters will elect his successor this week.

Andy Burnham became the city region’s first elected mayor in 2017, but his return to parliament last month to become prime minister has triggered the largest by-election in British history.

An electorate of around two million people from the 10 council areas that make up the region will on Thursday provide the first electoral test of Mr Burnham’s premiership.

More in Common’s latest poll predicts that Labour’s Bev Craig will beat Reform’s Sian Astley by 65 per cent to 35 per cent in the second round of this election, which will use the supplementary voting system – as was the case in 2017 and 2021.

It would be the first time that a Greater Manchester mayoral election has gone to a second round, however. Ms Craig is not predicted to clear the 50 per cent of first-choice votes required to win in the first round.

An incredibly popular figure in England’s North West, whose opposition to the government during the Covid-19 pandemic saw him dubbed the ‘King of the North’, Mr Burnham won with more than 60 per cent of the vote in all three of his mayoral elections.

Belfast-born Ms Craig, 41, has been leader of Manchester City Council since 2021, succeeding Sir Richard Leese, who had been in post since 1996.

She is the first female and first LGBTQ+ leader of the local authority, and worked closely with Mr Burnham during his time as mayor, serving as the combined authority’s member for the economy and business.

“It's almost as if she is Burnham's protégé,” Bury-born Jon Tonge, a politics professor at the University of Liverpool, said.

According to Prof Tonge, her likely victory will owe a lot to the change in the party’s leadership – she will be a primary beneficiary of its ‘Burnham bounce’, which has seen Labour this week overtake Reform in national polls.

He explained: “Everyone will be thinking, ‘Bev Craig represents Labour; Labour is rehabilitated for now because Andy Burnham is the Labour prime minister, and we like Andy Burnham. Therefore, we'll go and vote Labour because Bev Craig represents a Burnham-led Labour Party.’

“That makes it pretty easy for her to win the contest.”

Ms Craig’s campaign material has borrowed the ‘For Us’ branding used successfully by the now-prime minister in Makerfield and her policy offering is a combination of continuity and Burnham-esque new policies, such as extending free bus passes to 11- to 16-year-olds.

Asked how she would differ as mayor from a man who is synonymous with the role, Ms Craig told The Independent: “There will always be an element of continuity. I've worked really closely with Andy over the last five years.

“But I'm also not afraid to say that I'm my own person, and I've always operated that way in politics.”

Amid dismal results across the country, Labour lost 108 seats across Greater Manchester in May’s local elections: many in the city to the Green Party, to Reform in the outer boroughs, while the Liberal Democrats took control of Stockport.

Ms Craig said May’s elections “were driven by national issues rather than local ones”, but the “political landscape is very different now”.

Asked how she plans to bring Greater Manchester’s voters back to Labour, she added: “You win those people back by making a difference in their lives and dealing with their grievances in a way that gives them more money, more agency, and more control, rather than simply some parties that choose to divide neighbours and make them blame each other.”

‘I’ll be writing to Burnham in my first week’

If elected, Ms Craig may have more power than Mr Burnham ever had as mayor.

He has long been a supporter of devolution and has pledged to move power out of London and drive what he calls “good growth in every postcode”.

That has, so far, included his flagship policy No 10 North, the current base of which is found half a mile from the Greater Manchester combined authority’s office.

But Ms Craig said she will have no qualms in making her demands to the prime minister very clear.

She and Mr Burnham shared frustrations about what they “felt limited by” when he was in post as mayor, she explained, but she hopes that will be a thing of the past.

“It was Andy and I that were going in together to negotiate with the Department for Transport, Department for Education, the DWP, and government ministers for the devolution of power,” she said.

“I’ve been really clear with Andy: we’re good friends, we get on well. But if I'm successful, my job will be to fight for this city region and hold power accountable for the things we were frustrated we couldn't get.

“In my first week, I will be writing to him to request those powers that we wanted in the post-16 skills system, asking for more power and control in the housing space and in the ability to eradicate extractive or empty businesses from our high streets – those things that we really struggled to get from previous governments.”

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