LIVE: Streeting lauds Burnham as party’s ‘best chance’ to beat Reform

Former health secretary Wes Streeting has insisted Andy Burnham gives Labour the ‘best chance’ of beating Reform in the Makerfield by-election.

Mr Streeting, who quit the Government yesterday over Sir Keir Starmer’s leadership, says Mr Burnham is one the ‘best players on the pitch’.

In a post on X, he wrote:

We need our best players on the pitch. There is no doubt that Andy Burnham is one of them. The Makerfield by-election will be tough.

Votes will need to be earned. Andy is the best chance of winning and that should override factional advantage or propping up one person.

Reform today vowed to throw everything they have at stopping Andy Burnham from becoming an MP.

Deputy leader Richard Tice said the party wanted to ‘make Burnham history’ in the Makerfield by-election triggered to allow the Greater Manchester mayor to abandon the north and try to become prime minister.

Predictions for the 2029 election, based on current polling, make it a safe Reform win.

Speaking to GB News today Mr Tice said ‘the north had already spoken’ about its feelings for Labour, adding:

I am absolutely sure we will select someone who has the best chance and who will ultimately defeat Andy Burnham. Our simple campaign is vote Reform and make Burnham history.

Labour deputy leader Lucy Powell has said she has it on ‘good authority’ there will be ‘absolutely no attempt’ to stop Andy Burnham from the upcoming Makerfield by-election

‘We will have him as the candidate I am sure,’ she told a Fire Brigades Union conference in Coventry.

Ms Powell tells the conference she will take the political lead in Makerfield for election and has called on the unions for support after they predicted Sir Keir Starmer will not lead Labour at the next election.

On last week’s local election results, Ms Powell says there is ‘no sugercoating’ the outcome which she says ‘has been coming for a few years’.

‘We might have lost more seats to Reform, but we’ve actually lost a lot more voters to parties to our left,’ she adds.

Former safeguarding minister Jess Phillips has said Andy Burnham must be ‘careful of looking entitled’ as he joins the race to replace Sir Keir Starmer

In her first remarks since she resigned on Tuesday, Ms Phillips also suggested the Manchester mayor may be ‘playing a sort of Game of Thrones’ which could put off voters.

Speaking to Sky News’ Electoral Dysfunction podcast, she said:

Look, I have a huge amount of fondness for Andy Burnham. But I would also say like just be really, really careful of looking entitled.

It looks like, you know, there’s a sort of level of entitlement that ‘I feel like I’ll just have X, Y and Z seat’. I don’t know.

Labour would be ‘consumed’ by chaos if a leadership contest to replace Sir Keir Starmer were triggered, one of his key Cabinet allies has warned.

Speaking earlier this morning, Housing Secretary Steve Reed warned his colleagues against triggering a leadership contest against Sir Keir, and claimed the party would follow the Conservatives in suffering further woes at the ballot box if one took place.

He told Sky News:

You don’t have to imagine what would happen, because we just have to look back at what the Conservatives did.

Labour did ‘badly’ in last week’s local polls in England, and in devolved elections in Wales and Scotland, Mr Reed conceded, but added:

The Conservatives went further back from that dreadful general election result. Do we really want that to be our future? We’re in power. We were sent here by the British public to deliver change. We promised the fastest growing economy in the G7, this first quarter this year. We’ve done it.

We promised to cut NHS waiting lists. Yesterday we saw the biggest monthly fall for 18 years. Why would we throw that away to engage in the chaos that consumed the Conservatives?

by Christian Calgie, Senior Political Correspondent-at-Large

Nigel Farage has vowed to ‘throw absolutely everything’ at the Makerfield by-election, in what will be the most dramatic and consequential race in over half a century.

On Thursday afternoon, former minister Josh Simons said he planned on resigning and sparking a by-election to allow Andy Burnham to make a sensational return to Parliament.

But the Manchester Mayor’s route back to the frontline of politics could be upended by Reform UK, who believe they have a very real chance of snatching the seat.

The insurgent Right-wing party immediately published numbers suggesting they stormed to victory in the constituency at last week’s local election.

Of the eight wards within Mr Simons’s seat that went to the polls, Reform UK won every single one and trounced the Labour Party. Mr Farage secured 50.4 per cent of the vote, compared to Labour’s dismal 22.7 per cent.

by David Wilcock, Deputy Political Editor

The pound tanked and gilts soared this morning as the markets reacted badly to the possibility of Andy Burnham becoming prime minister.

The yield on 30-year UK government bonds, also known as gilts, surged 12 basis points to 5.774 per cent in Friday morning trading, climbing back up close to 28-year highs reached earlier this week amid the political turmoil.

The pound was down as much as 0.4 per cent against the US dollar, before settling around 0.3 per cent lower at 1.336 US dollars.

Political concerns added to worries over the inflation outlook amid the Iran war to send London’s blue chip FTSE share index sharply lower.

It came as allies of Sir Keir Starmer fought a desperate rearguard action to try to protect the lame duck Prime Minister.

by Martin Beckford and Jason Groves

Keir Starmer’s Government was frozen in the headlights last night as the plots to topple him finally burst into the open.

On another dramatic day at Westminster, Andy Burnham announced plans for a return to Parliament, where the self-styled ‘King of the North’ hopes to stage a coup against the Prime Minister within months.

The move came just hours after Wes Streeting delivered a brutal assessment of the PM’s character as he quit the Cabinet to prepare his own leadership bid. And Angela Rayner signalled she is ready to contest any fight after agreeing to hand over £40,000 in unpaid stamp duty to settle a dispute with the taxman.

She claimed she had been ‘cleared’ of wrongdoing by HM Revenue and Customs, although experts were questioning why she had not been fined.

Kemi Badenoch warned that the Labour infighting would paralyse the Government for months at the very moment Sir Keir has pledged to accelerate reforms following Labour’s disastrous performance at the local elections.

The Tory leader said: ‘The Labour Party has now descended into civil war. And while they’re sharpening their knives and plotting in the bars of Westminster, nobody is running the country.’

Labour MPs are openly discussing who they would like to see replace Sir Keir Starmer as Prime Minister ahead of an expected leadership challenge.

On the BBC Radio 4 Today programme, two backbenchers who called for Sir Keir to resign following the disastrous local election results gave their view

• Simon Opher, MP for Stroud is backing Andy Burnham

I think I would back Andy [Burnham. He’s the most popular politician currently in the UK, and I’m really glad he’s been given a chance to get back in.

• Catherine McKinnell, MP for Newcastle North would support Wes Streeting

He’s shown real leadership. I think he’s showed great integrity and principle yesterday in resigning and being open and honest in how he feels about the situation.

by Martin Beckford and James Tapsfield

Angela Rayner last night faced calls to prove she has been ‘cleared’ by the taxman just in time to join the Labour leadership race.

Labour’s ex-deputy leader declared yesterday that HMRC had absolved her of wrongdoing or carelessness over the purchase of a home in Hove, East Sussex.

She was required to stump up the £40,000 in unpaid stamp duty on the south coast flat but was said to have avoided a fine.

Experts and political rivals said ordinary taxpayers were likely to feel aggrieved as HMRC almost always imposes fines in such cases.

Questions were raised about how the taxman had concluded she had not been careless, given she did not obtain specialist tax advice on the complex transaction that involved a trust being set up for her disabled son.

Eyebrows were also raised over how the probe came to be closed so quickly, paving the way for her to stand in an expected race to succeed Sir Keir Starmer.

Josh Simons, the Labour MP whose resignation in Makerfield has allowed Andy Burnham a route back into Westminster, has said standing down for the Manchester Mayor is the ‘most difficult decision’ he’s made.

Mr Simons, who preveriously served as a minister under Sir Keir Starmer, said he believed Burnham could ‘drive the change our country is crying out for’.

Speaking to BBC Radio Manchester, he said:

We have lost the trust of those our party was built to serve. It is my unwavering belief that nothing short of urgent, radical, courageous reform will make a difference.

Asked what was in it for him, Mr Burnham denied a suggestion he will stand for the Manchester mayoralty as he pledged to spend more time with family and help Mr Burnham defeat Reform.

Sir Keir Starmer is ‘unpopular’, one of his allies in the Cabinet acknowledged amid a gathering race to replace him, while insisting Labour should not repeat the pattern of changing leaders which engulfed the Conservatives.

Housing Secretary Steve Reed told Sky News:

The Prime Minister is unpopular, but each of the last four prime ministers in turn have been the most unpopular prime minister we’ve ever had.

What happens when you’re the leader of the Government at a time when the public are so angry with the state of our public services and the economy, is it focuses down on that individual.

He continued:

What we need to do is all of us come together behind the Prime Minister and focus on how we can deliver the change the British public want to see faster.