Sir Keir Starmer has defended the decision to block Andy Burnham from standing in an upcoming by-election.
Burnham, who held a range of ministerial positions before standing down to become Mayor of Greater Manchester, is widely seen as a potential leadership challenger to Sir Keir should he return to Westminster.
Labour’s decision making body, the National Executive Committee (NEC), which includes Sir Keir, banned him from standing, saying the block on him running as the Labour candidate in Gorton and Denton would “avoid an unnecessary mayoral election”.
But some backbenchers have complained about “petty factional manoeuvring” and are calling for the decision to be reconsidered.
Speaking to reporters on Monday, Sir Keir insisted allowing Burnham to run for a seat in Westminster would “divert our resources” from “very important” campaigns in May’s elections, where Labour is facing potential losses in the Senedd in Wales, the Scottish parliament and English local elections.
“We’re out campaigning on the cost of living and they’re very important elections – we need all of our focus on those elections,” he said.
“Andy Burnham’s doing a great job as the mayor of Manchester, but having an election for the mayor of Manchester when it’s not necessary would divert our resources away from the elections that we must have, that we must fight and win.
“And resources, whether that’s money or people, need to be focused on the elections that we must have, not elections that we don’t have to have. And that was the basis of the NEC decision.”
Asked for a response at an event in Manchester, Burnham told the : “I am not making any comment. I’ve said what I needed to say and here I am back in my job. A full focus on my job as mayor of Greater Manchester.”
He refused to respond when asked whether he felt Sir Keir was scared of him, adding: “I’m at work. Enjoying the job.”
While some Labour MPs have expressed unhappiness about the decision to stop Burnham from standing in Gorton and Denton, there are some who are happy the Manchester mayor has been blocked.
Reasons include not wanting Labour splits to be exposed in months of public drama, and others because they want a different candidate to succeed Sir Keir whenever that time comes.
Earlier, Labour MP Nadia Whittome told Radio 4’s Today programme that she disagreed with the decision to block Burnham, because local party members should have the right to choose their own candidate to run in the seat vacated by former Labour MP Andrew Gwynne.
The MP for Nottingham East said: “Myself and many other MPs from right across the party believe that in blocking our only senior Labour politician with a net positive popularity rating, who is mayor of Greater Manchester, is putting petty factional manoeuvring and settling personal scores above winning elections and, in doing so, is risking gifting the seat to Reform.”
Asked whether Burnham should be getting on with his job as mayor, Whittome said: “Let’s be honest, that’s not the reason he was blocked.”
She was supportive of a letter understood to be circulating between backbenchers that called the decision to block Burnham a “remote stitch-up” and said: “Our loyalty is to the Labour Party, not to some of the people at the top of the party, who are wrecking the party that we love,” she added.
But Baroness Harman, a former Labour deputy leader, told the same programme she was “slightly baffled” why Burnham applied when it “could or should have been clear to him that it would end up like it is now”, with rejection.
“What was going to be obvious was the NEC would support the position taken by the prime minister, which they did by eight to one,” she said, adding “it would have been better for him not to put in an application.”
Scottish Secretary Douglas Alexander told Today “Nadia is right” about the importance of the coming months for Labour, but defended the NEC’s judgement because of the electoral threat from Reform, who he said are “outspending us at the moment ten to one”.
“You’ve got to ask yourselves, as the NEC asked themselves, where is the best interests of the Labour party served and would our opponents have been cheering if the Labour party had decided to engage in a psychodrama instead of directing our fire and training our sights on Reform, on the Green party, on the SNP, on Plaid Cymru.”
Asked whether preventing Labour members in Gorton and Denton from selecting Burnham as their candidate was undemocratic, Alexander replied: “We exist as a Labour party not for what’s best for an individual but what’s best collectively.”
