{"id":145601,"date":"2026-06-22T12:14:37","date_gmt":"2026-06-22T11:14:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.politics.co.uk\/?p=145601"},"modified":"2026-06-22T12:23:01","modified_gmt":"2026-06-22T11:23:01","slug":"andy-burnham-wields-the-knife-and-wins-the-crown","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.politics.co.uk\/news-feature\/2026\/06\/22\/andy-burnham-wields-the-knife-and-wins-the-crown\/","title":{"rendered":"Andy Burnham wields the knife, and wins the crown"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Andy Burnham\u2019s sensational victory in the Makerfield by-election rendered untenable the continuation of Keir Starmer\u2019s premiership. The prime minister, to his credit, left his Downing Street bunker on Monday morning and bowed to the inevitable.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Starmer\u2019s strained insistence that he would, in the words of another outgoing prime minister, \u201cfight on\u201d and \u201cfight to win\u201d melted on contact with political reality. The power of Burnham\u2019s victory sent an uncomplicated signal to the parliamentary Labour Party. The man previously confined to the Greater Manchester mayoralty would thwart Reform and save Labour seats.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>There was no misinterpreting the message made in Makerfield. It demanded a response.<\/p>\n<p>Starmer\u2019s statement today will spare Labour from the brutal spectacle of a parliamentary stampede. But in the words of a third outgoing prime minister, the herd had already moved.<\/p>\n<p>After all, the protection Labour\u2019s leadership strictures afforded Starmer was no match for the raw political meaning of the Makerfield\u00a0result.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>To attribute Starmer\u2019s fall solely to a single by-election would, of course, misunderstand the longer arc of his premiership. The winter fuel payment cut; the ructions caused by the government\u2019s stance on the two-child benefit cap; the botched handling of the welfare bill rebellion; the inevitable but always belated U-turns; the appointment of Peter Mandelson as Britain\u2019s ambassador to the United States; the unpopularity; the rise of populisms on the left and right \u2013 every development, every debacle diminished Starmer in the eyes of Labour MPs.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>In his statement this morning, Starmer exercised his right to rehearse a different story. He referred to the \u201cmorally\u201d bankrupt state of the Labour Party in 2020 and the immense odds he faced as leader of the opposition in the wake of Corbynism.<\/p>\n<p>In defiant tones, Starmer declared that he had proved \u201cthose people wrong. Because we changed our party, ripping out the poison of antisemitism, restoring trust on the economy, defence and national security and becoming a party that once again stood proudly with, not against, our national flag.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The 2024 general election did indeed deliver that rare thing: a Labour government. But the defining story of Starmer\u2019s premiership was its inability to realise the potential that this historic political achievement promised.<\/p>\n<p>Starmer\u2019s resignation sets in train the process that will now deliver Britain\u2019s seventh prime minister in 10 years. He told the nation that nominations would open for the election of his successor on 9 July. If a leadership election is triggered, Starmer\u2019s successor will be in place by the time parliament returns from its summer recess in September.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>The parliamentary Labour Party (PLP) will now enstool, by contest or coronation, Andy Burnham as Starmer\u2019s successor. The immediate intrigue lies in whether any credible challenger will emerge. Starmer\u2019s remaining allies may yet attempt to rally around a candidate, but Wes Streeting\u2019s decision to endorse Burnham all but clears his path to Downing Street.<\/p>\n<p>There has been some meditation on the meaning of Makerfield in recent days. But the developments since Burnham\u2019s victory was declared in the early hours of Friday morning surely confirm it as the most consequential by-election in British history.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>By-elections and poor electoral performance generally are part of the formula that leads to a prime ministerial resignation. The circumstances of Burnham\u2019s accession, however, are entirely unprecedented. He stood for parliament with the aim of defenestrating the prime minister, and succeeded. <span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>For this reason, it is indefensibly banal to suggest that Starmer is leaving Downing Street \u201con his own terms&#8221;. The extent to which Starmer\u2019s exit was coordinated with or communicated to camp Burnham will be revealed over the coming days and weeks. But Starmer has fallen victim to a political coup \u2013 engineered by Burnham and endorsed by the electorate of Makerfield.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>In the end, there was some grace but little dignity to be found in the circumstances surrounding Starmer\u2019s departure.<\/p>\n<p>Perhaps the real power of the Makerfield by-election is that it allowed Labour to oust Starmer on <i>its<\/i> own terms. The Makerfield outcome obscures Nigel Farage\u2019s claim that Starmer is his third prime ministerial scalp (after David Cameron and Theresa May). Reform candidates stood at the local elections in May on a platform of \u201cget Starmer out\u201d. On the face of it, regicidal action by Labour MPs risked lending credence to Reform and Farage. But in Makerfield, Burnham stole Farage\u2019s thunder to ensure a succession could be conducted almost entirely according to his design.<\/p>\n<p>The reasons for Starmer\u2019s resignation are manifold. They can be found in the missteps and muddied messaging that characterised his premiership. But the immediate cause of his resignation is simple: Andy Burnham and Makerfield.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>It was Burnham, then, who definitively disproved Michael Heseltine\u2019s maxim that those who wield the knife cannot inherit the crown.<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>Andy Burnham\u2019s sensational victory in the Makerfield by-election rendered untenable the continuation of Keir Starmer\u2019s premiership. The prime minister, to his credit, left his Downing Street bunker on Monday morning and bowed to the inevitable.\u00a0 Starmer\u2019s strained insistence that he would, in the words of another outgoing prime minister, \u201cfight on\u201d and \u201cfight to win\u201d&#8230;  <a class=\"excerpt-read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/www.politics.co.uk\/news-feature\/2026\/06\/22\/andy-burnham-wields-the-knife-and-wins-the-crown\/\" title=\"Read Andy Burnham wields the knife, and wins the crown\">Read more &raquo;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":183,"featured_media":145295,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6511],"tags":[1198,5946],"editors-picks":[],"maps":[],"class_list":["post-145601","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>Andy Burnham wields the knife, and wins the crown - 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\/06\/22\/andy-burnham-wields-the-knife-and-wins-the-crown\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Andy Burnham wields the knife, and wins the crown - Politics.co.uk\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Andy Burnham\u2019s sensational victory in the Makerfield by-election rendered untenable the continuation of Keir Starmer\u2019s premiership. The prime minister, to his credit, left his Downing Street bunker on Monday morning and bowed to the inevitable.\u00a0 Starmer\u2019s strained insistence that he would, in the words of another outgoing prime minister, \u201cfight on\u201d and \u201cfight to win\u201d... 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The prime minister, to his credit, left his Downing Street bunker on Monday morning and bowed to the inevitable.\u00a0 Starmer\u2019s strained insistence that he would, in the words of another outgoing prime minister, \u201cfight on\u201d and \u201cfight to win\u201d... 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