{"id":145459,"date":"2026-01-25T19:50:46","date_gmt":"2026-01-25T19:50:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.politics.co.uk\/?p=145459"},"modified":"2026-05-11T15:09:32","modified_gmt":"2026-05-11T14:09:32","slug":"blocking-burnham-will-not-stop-the-psychodrama","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.politics.co.uk\/news-feature\/2026\/01\/25\/blocking-burnham-will-not-stop-the-psychodrama\/","title":{"rendered":"Blocking Burnham will not stop the psychodrama"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>There are at least two ostensible explanations for the Labour national executive committee\u2019s decision to block Andy Burnham from standing in the Gorton and Denton by-election.<\/p>\n<p>The official narrative was delivered in the form of a lengthy press notice this afternoon. The \u201cstatement from the Labour Party\u201d explained that Burnham\u2019s candidacy would have precipitated an \u201cunnecessary\u201d Greater Manchester mayoral election, imposing a \u201csubstantial and disproportionate\u201d impact on party campaign resources ahead of the local elections and elections to the Scottish Parliament and Welsh Senedd in May.<\/p>\n<p>The NEC, Starmer-in-council, could not in good conscience have \u201cput Labour\u2019s control of Greater Manchester at any risk.\u201d The statement also cited the need to avoid an unnecessary splurge of \u201ctaxpayers\u2019 money and resources\u201d and looked ahead to the Gorton and Denton by-election; the pronouncement promised a \u201cpositive campaign\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>There is also the unofficial narrative, which departs markedly from the neutral-sounding language of this statement.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Loyal Starmerite MPs welcomed Burnham\u2019s exclusion in curiously congruous tones. John Slinger, a staunch and sometimes <a href=\"https:\/\/thecritic.co.uk\/slingers-and-arrows\/\">lonely<\/a> defender of the prime minister, <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/christiancalgie\/status\/2015401199093137433\/photo\/1\">argued<\/a> that the decision to bar Burnham would allow Labour to move swiftly on from the \u201cintrospection and psychodrama of the last week.\u201d Steve Race, the Labour MP for Exeter, <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/christiancalgie\/status\/2015401199093137433\/photo\/2\">welcomed<\/a> the decision on the grounds that it would \u201cput the psychodrama to bed.\u201d Both Labour MPs respectively looked forward to the \u201cvital\u201d and \u201cimportant\u201d elections in May \u2013 and the prospect of defeating Reform.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>From the Labour leadership\u2019s perspective, the administrative and political explanations are difficult to reconcile; taken together, they suggest that Starmer wanted a way to block a psychodramatic rival and found a procedural solution.<\/p>\n<p>It is at the intersection of these two narratives, then, that the truth appears. And it is a revealing truth. Under significant political strain, Starmer found solace in the dual comforts of process and the NEC rulebook.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>The landslide 8-1 NEC vote belies a series of cruel realities.<\/p>\n<p>The first problem is the weakness the decision signals.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span>In September 2025, Starmer defused Burnham\u2019s Labour conference challenge with a disciplined, politically thoughtful set-piece speech. The prime minister emerged stronger from his conference battle. But he does not back himself to win a war at Westminster. William Hague, during his ill-fated tenure as Conservative leader, faced a potentially threatening parliamentary comeback of his own. His solution was to appoint Michael Portillo as shadow chancellor.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>The Labour leadership simply does not think the party whip, or possibly collective responsibility, would be enough to suppress Burnham. Instead, Starmer \u2013 in a crowning moment of centralised control-freakery \u2013 has chosen to keep Labour\u2019s prince across the water in the relative wilderness. Critics will argue that this culture of control is now crowding out assets in the battle against Nigel Farage.<\/p>\n<p>Certainly, Starmer\u2019s allies will struggle to waft away the stench of a selection stitch-up; Lucy Powell \u2013 the sole non-Starmer ally on the NEC \u2013 provided the lone dissenting vote.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>The most striking aspect of Burnham\u2019s exclusion is its potential to exacerbate existing divisions within the Parliamentary Labour Party (PLP) and the cabinet. In recent days, a series of senior Labour politicians have rallied around Burnham; Powell, Ed Miliband and Angela Rayner \u2013 the current deputy leader, the former deputy leader, and a former party leader \u2013 all signalled their sympathy with the Greater Manchester mayor\u2019s cause.<\/p>\n<p>In a speech to the Labour north west regional conference, Rayner declared: \u201cI know my friend, the mayor, has put his name forward, and I believe the local members should get the choice, no stitch-ups.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Crucially, the criticism of Starmer\u2019s conduct is not confined to the soft left. Jo White, the convenor of the Red Wall caucus of Labour MPs, had <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/jowhite__\/status\/2014629284975985049\">urged<\/a> the party leadership to let \u201cthe North decide who their Labour candidate should be for the Gorton and Denton by-election.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>White added: \u201cA London stitch-up will be a disaster for Labour.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>On top of this, the Blue Labour group has <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/blue_labour\/status\/2015416379902456168\">condemned<\/a> the party\u2019s central bureaucracy for its lack of \u201cclarity and direction\u201d. The faction poured scorn on the use of \u201cadministrative and procedural methods\u201d to block Burnham, which they castigated as \u201ca profound mistake\u201d.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>The Labour Party\u2019s factions are mostly speaking with one voice \u2013 that should scare Starmer far more than the prospect of a Burnham comeback. And the NEC decree will only reinforce and crystallise this unlikely unity \u2013 both now and in the coming months as Labour faces Reform in Gorton and Denton.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>In repulsing his party\u2019s prince across the water, therefore, Starmer could well have opened the factional floodgates.<\/p>\n<p>Equally telling is the quiet of potential future leadership candidates. Shabana Mahmood, the home secretary, conspicuously refused to come out swinging against Burnham on the Sunday morning media circuit. Wes Streeting, the health secretary, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.itn.co.uk\/news\/streeting-weighs-burnham-byelection-decision-0\">spoke<\/a> positively about the Greater Manchester mayor in his appearance at the Fabians new year conference yesterday. He <a href=\"https:\/\/www.newstatesman.com\/politics\/uk-politics\/2026\/01\/wes-streeting-brands-anti-burnham-briefings-as-disgraceful\">condemned<\/a> the anti-Burnham briefings as \u201cdisgraceful\u201d and described the upcoming Gorton and Denton by-election as \u201cvery critical\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>He added: \u201cWe want the best possible candidate for that by-election.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Compare this line to that taken by Steve Reed, housing secretary and Starmer ally, in the wake of the NEC decision. Reed <a href=\"https:\/\/www.gbnews.com\/politics\/andy-burnham-keir-starmer-labour-leadership-plots-steve-reed-reaction\">spoke<\/a> of the \u201chuge inconvenience to two million voters across Greater Manchester of having a by-election for a new mayor if [Burnham] were to move forward.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He added: \u201cPeople voted in Greater Manchester overwhelmingly for Andy Burnham to be their mayor two years ago for a four-year term.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>If Labour loses the Gorton and Denton by-election, the recriminations will be brutal.<\/p>\n<p>Starmer will be squarely in the firing line \u2013 the NEC ruling confirms that. Not only would he be blamed for failing to win the seat, but sceptics would argue that he actively undermined Labour\u2019s chances in pursuit of his own survival. That is the political reality that the NEC decision effectively invites.<\/p>\n<p>The timing is fascinating. Starmer has placed a target on his leadership mere weeks before his latest moment of maximum danger, the May elections.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>That is the distinct irony of the NEC decision. Blocking Burnham makes a leadership challenger <i>more<\/i>, not less, likely. And so Starmer\u2019s professed reasoning, to lance the boil of Labour psychodrama, fails on its own terms.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Starmer succeeded at Labour conference because he styled Burnham, credibly, as the source of the psychodrama. The NEC decision reverses this dynamic. The Labour leader\u2019s intervention means he owns the political fallout of Burnham\u2019s exclusion and any by-election setback. He is the most prominent author of any chaos that now follows.<\/p>\n<p>There will come a time when Starmer runs out of procedural solutions to his political problems.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><i>Josh Self is editor of Politics.co.uk, follow him on Bluesky <\/i><a href=\"https:\/\/bsky.app\/profile\/josh-self.bsky.social\"><i>here<\/i><\/a><i>\u00a0and X <\/i><a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/Josh_Self_\"><i>here<\/i><\/a><i>.<\/i><\/p>\n<p><i>Politics.co.uk is the UK\u2019s leading digital-only political website. <\/i><a href=\"https:\/\/www.politics.co.uk\/subscribe\/\"><i>Subscribe to our daily newsletter<\/i><\/a><i> for all the latest news and analysis.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>There are at least two ostensible explanations for the Labour national executive committee\u2019s decision to block Andy Burnham from standing in the Gorton and Denton by-election. The official narrative was delivered in the form of a lengthy press notice this afternoon. The \u201cstatement from the Labour Party\u201d explained that Burnham\u2019s candidacy would have precipitated an&#8230;  <a class=\"excerpt-read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/www.politics.co.uk\/news-feature\/2026\/01\/25\/blocking-burnham-will-not-stop-the-psychodrama\/\" title=\"Read Blocking Burnham will not stop the psychodrama\">Read more &raquo;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":183,"featured_media":145295,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6511],"tags":[1198,5946],"editors-picks":[],"maps":[],"class_list":["post-145459","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-feature","tag-andy-burnham","tag-keir-starmer-2"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v28.0 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Blocking Burnham will not stop the psychodrama - Politics.co.uk<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.politics.co.uk\/news-feature\/2026\/01\/25\/blocking-burnham-will-not-stop-the-psychodrama\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Blocking Burnham will not stop the psychodrama - Politics.co.uk\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"There are at least two ostensible explanations for the Labour national executive committee\u2019s decision to block Andy Burnham from standing in the Gorton and Denton by-election. The official narrative was delivered in the form of a lengthy press notice this afternoon. The \u201cstatement from the Labour Party\u201d explained that Burnham\u2019s candidacy would have precipitated an... Read more &raquo;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.politics.co.uk\/news-feature\/2026\/01\/25\/blocking-burnham-will-not-stop-the-psychodrama\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Politics.co.uk\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2026-01-25T19:50:46+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2026-05-11T14:09:32+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.politics.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/3CPYYA8.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1455\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"971\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Josh Self\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Josh Self\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"6 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.politics.co.uk\\\/news-feature\\\/2026\\\/01\\\/25\\\/blocking-burnham-will-not-stop-the-psychodrama\\\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.politics.co.uk\\\/news-feature\\\/2026\\\/01\\\/25\\\/blocking-burnham-will-not-stop-the-psychodrama\\\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Josh Self\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.politics.co.uk\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/9a232de0959ff678e2d672ecc58c2fbc\"},\"headline\":\"Blocking Burnham will not stop the psychodrama\",\"datePublished\":\"2026-01-25T19:50:46+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2026-05-11T14:09:32+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.politics.co.uk\\\/news-feature\\\/2026\\\/01\\\/25\\\/blocking-burnham-will-not-stop-the-psychodrama\\\/\"},\"wordCount\":1154,\"commentCount\":0,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.politics.co.uk\\\/#organization\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.politics.co.uk\\\/news-feature\\\/2026\\\/01\\\/25\\\/blocking-burnham-will-not-stop-the-psychodrama\\\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.politics.co.uk\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2025\\\/09\\\/3CPYYA8.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"Andy Burnham\",\"Keir Starmer\"],\"articleSection\":[\"News Feature\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\\\/\\\/www.politics.co.uk\\\/news-feature\\\/2026\\\/01\\\/25\\\/blocking-burnham-will-not-stop-the-psychodrama\\\/#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.politics.co.uk\\\/news-feature\\\/2026\\\/01\\\/25\\\/blocking-burnham-will-not-stop-the-psychodrama\\\/\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.politics.co.uk\\\/news-feature\\\/2026\\\/01\\\/25\\\/blocking-burnham-will-not-stop-the-psychodrama\\\/\",\"name\":\"Blocking Burnham will not stop the psychodrama - Politics.co.uk\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.politics.co.uk\\\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.politics.co.uk\\\/news-feature\\\/2026\\\/01\\\/25\\\/blocking-burnham-will-not-stop-the-psychodrama\\\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.politics.co.uk\\\/news-feature\\\/2026\\\/01\\\/25\\\/blocking-burnham-will-not-stop-the-psychodrama\\\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.politics.co.uk\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2025\\\/09\\\/3CPYYA8.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2026-01-25T19:50:46+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2026-05-11T14:09:32+00:00\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.politics.co.uk\\\/news-feature\\\/2026\\\/01\\\/25\\\/blocking-burnham-will-not-stop-the-psychodrama\\\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\\\/\\\/www.politics.co.uk\\\/news-feature\\\/2026\\\/01\\\/25\\\/blocking-burnham-will-not-stop-the-psychodrama\\\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.politics.co.uk\\\/news-feature\\\/2026\\\/01\\\/25\\\/blocking-burnham-will-not-stop-the-psychodrama\\\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.politics.co.uk\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2025\\\/09\\\/3CPYYA8.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.politics.co.uk\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2025\\\/09\\\/3CPYYA8.jpg\",\"width\":1455,\"height\":971,\"caption\":\"3CPYYA8 Mayor of Greater Manchester Andy Burnham attending a Labour for a New Democracy fringe event at the Labour Party Conference at the ACC Liverpool. 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The official narrative was delivered in the form of a lengthy press notice this afternoon. The \u201cstatement from the Labour Party\u201d explained that Burnham\u2019s candidacy would have precipitated an... 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