Cabinet Minister Dismisses Burnham Leadership Bid With Brutal 2-Word Slapdown

A Labour cabinet minister has dismissed Andy Burnham’s party leadership ambitions after the Manchester mayor said MPs were urging him to challenge Keir Starmer.

Housing secretary Steve Reed dismissed Burnham as a “regional politician” in a brutal slapdown ahead of next week’s Labour Party conference.

He also insisted Burnham was “committed to seeing out his full term” as mayor, which doesn’t end until 2028.

In an interview with the Daily Telegraph, Burnham accused Downing Street of creating a “climate of fear” and said “wholesale change” was required to see off an “existential” threat to Labour.

Asked if MPs had urged him to run for the top job, he said: “People have contacted me throughout the summer – yeah.

“I’m not going to say to you that that hasn’t happened, but as I say, it’s more a decision for those people than it is for me.”

But on BBC Breakfast on Thursday, Reed – a leading Starmer loyalist – hit back at his senior party colleague.

He said: “He is entitled as a leading regional politician to make his case. I think he’s doing a fantastic job as mayor of Manchester – he committed to seeing out his full term, which ends in 2028.”

Reed added: “People have taken pot shots at Keir Starmer before. When it happened in opposition, he picked this party up off the floor and he led is to a record-breaking election victory.

“Our job now is to talk to the country, not to ourselves, about how we’re going to change the things that they care about.”

HuffPost UK revealed yesterday how Burnham – who quit as an MP in 2017 and would need to find another seat to become leader – had sparked an angry backlash within Labour after he set out his vision for the country in the New Statesman magazine.

He said: “If you’re asking me, am I attracted to going back into my old world and the old way of doing things in Westminster with minimal change, well no, I wouldn’t find that attractive.

“[But] am I ready to work with anybody who wants to sort of put in place a plan to turn the country around? I’m happy to play any role. I am ready to play any role in that.”

One Labour MP said: “If Andy thinks that we are all waiting for him to ride to the rescue then he is very much mistaken. There isn’t a lot of support for a person who ran away from Westminster when the going got tough.”

A party source added: “Keir should say to him ‘any time you want Andy, there’ll be a seat for you, and I want you in government’.

“He’d shit himself. People would see how useless he is and he’d stop getting a free pass to tour the TV studios criticising Westminster and his party colleagues.”