Sir Keir Starmer has insisted he will stand in a Labour leadership contest, should one be triggered after Andy Burnham returns to Westminster following his victory in the Makerfield by-election.
The Prime Minister is under pressure to hand over power to Mr Burnham, who defied national trends to increase Labour’s share of the vote in a seat where Nigel Farage’s Reform UK made sweeping gains in last month’s local elections.
But Sir Keir insisted he will not “walk away” from Downing Street, setting Labour up for a showdown over the premiership as the outgoing Greater Manchester Mayor insisted his win was “the change moment” for Britain.
Speaking to reporters at an event in north London, Sir Keir said: “If there is a contest, then yes, I will stand.
“I have said repeatedly, I am not going to walk away from that.”
The Prime Minister said he had not yet directly spoken with Mr Burnham since his victory, but added that he will, and had already sent a message of congratulations to him.
Sir Keir also said his rival’s by-election victory was evidence “the tide is turning on Reform, that they can’t now win by-elections”.
He reiterated his message in a call to Labour staffers across the country at lunchtime, saying the party needs to “pull together” and “take the fight” to Reform UK.
He said: “Let’s pull together as a party and a movement. The one thing we’ve got to avoid doing is plunging our party and our country into chaos by turning on each other and tearing apart our party and our movement.
“That has never worked. That’s what the last government did. We need to learn that lesson.”
At a Labour rally following his win, leadership hopeful Mr Burnham said: “We’ve been on a path for 40 years that simply hasn’t worked for people and places in this part of the world, and this now is the change moment.
“We have an opportunity to turn the tide, to make the country feel like it’s working again, to make people see that politics can make a positive difference, to make people feel hope again.”
He added: “I think we need in this country right now for people to feel a sense of hope that there is something better to work towards on the horizon.”
He called for reindustrialisation, reforms to Whitehall and an end to the “unfairness” of the immigration system, which he said people had raised frequently on doorsteps during his campaign.
Makerfield is the third successive parliamentary by-election in which Nigel Farage’s political outfit has come second over the last year, following the Caerphilly by-election for the Welsh Parliament in October, and the Gorton and Denton Westminster by-election in February.
[xdelx]Mr Burnham defeated Reform UK’s Robert Kenyon by 9,231 votes, up from 5,399 in 2024, and Labour’s vote share increased by 9.61%.
In his victory speech after winning the Makerfield by-election, Mr Burnham said Labour had a “final chance to change”, and he urged his party to act now, saying there would be no second chance.
He said: “Everyone knows that politics isn’t working.
“Everyone can feel that the country isn’t where it should be. Tonight could, just could, be the turning point.”
In a direct message to Labour MPs he said: “I do say to my own party: this is a final chance to change.
“This is what people said directly to me on the hundreds of doorsteps that I stood on.
“We must hear it, we must act upon it and we must get it right. There will be no second chance.”
Mr Burnham gave up the Greater Manchester mayoralty by becoming Makerfield MP, winning the seat that was vacated by Josh Simons in order to allow him the chance of returning to Westminster and seek to become prime minister.
A mayoral election to replace Mr Burnham will be held on Thursday, July 30, the Greater Manchester Combined Authority has confirmed.
In an attempt at addressing the assertion that he was only seeking to become Makerfield’s MP to further his own ambitions, he said: “It will never be a stepping stone to me, but instead will be my touchstone.
“A Makerfield test at the heart of British politics will make sure that the places Westminster has neglected will now get fairness.”
Louise Haigh, a former minister in Sir Keir’s Cabinet, urged the Prime Minister to set out an orderly transition and agree a “path forward” with Mr Burnham in the coming days.
She said: “I hope the Prime Minister takes the weekend to really reflect on the result here – listen to soundings from the cabinet and the PLP, because all the evidence suggests that a contest will be brutal, it will be unpleasant and it will be very unlikely that the Prime Minister is going to win at the end of it.”
Asked if they had a “campaign ready to go”, she said: “Yes.”
Ms Haigh said: “We really hope that this can be a managed and orderly transition and Keir Starmer will reflect on the results, and Andy and Keir can meet in the coming days, and over the next week, and agree a path forward.”
She said “all the agency is in Keir Starmer’s hands” and that she hoped he did that in “a dignified way”.
Sir Keir has been holding calls with members of his Cabinet to shore up support in the wake of Mr Burnham’s by-election win, the i paper reported.
He is understood to have amassed a war chest to fund his campaign to fight any leadership challenge, as first reported by The Times.
He has the backing of a group of private donors, with fundraising having ramped up in the last two days and total pledges running into six figures, sources said.
2 men jailed for setting fire to property linked to UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer
Reform cannot win a general election – and Makerfield has shown us why
Burnham by-election live: Starmer warns leadership challenge would lead to ‘chaos’
Extreme heat warning issued for parts of UK next week amid new heatwave
Labour obsessed with internal drama, says Badenoch as Tories win by-election
Scottish Conservatives win first Westminster by-election in 50 years
.png?width=1200&auto=webp&trim=0%2C0%2C0%2C0)
