Andy Burnham has said Labour MPs are privately urging him to challenge Keir Starmer to become prime minister but any such move would have to be “more than a personality contest”.
In an intervention likely to increase speculation that he is seeking a return to Westminster, Burnham accused Downing Street of creating a “climate of fear” and spreading “alienation and demoralisation” among MPs.
Speaking to the Daily Telegraph before the Labour conference this weekend, the Greater Manchester mayor said that while he was not “plotting to get back” the leadership was “for other people in Westminster to make a decision about”.
It came a day after a separate interview with the New Statesman where Burnham said wholesale change was needed to see off an existential threat to the party.
The former New Labour minister and ex-MP for Leigh has made a series of high-profile interventions this week that have been interpreted as an indication that he is mulling a challenge to Starmer in what would be his third run at the Labour leadership.
Speaking to BBC Radio Manchester on Thursday morning, Burnham said he had told Labour MPs backing him that any leadership race has “got to be about more than a personality contest … it’s got to be about a plan for the country”.
He said he would not “speak in code”, “toe the line” or “be quiet” about issues important to Greater Manchester and would “speak directly”. He declined to explicitly say whether he would launch a leadership bid if he gained enough backing from MPs, saying he was “not in the business of answering hypotheticals”.
He dismissed suggestions that his interventions were a disservice to Labour or distracting him from his job in Manchester, saying he had been working with ministers “behind the scenes” on the Hillsborough law.
Asked about Burnham’s remarks on Thursday morning, Steve Reed, the housing secretary, said Starmer had got used to people “taking potshots” at him during opposition before he “picked this party up off the floor and led us to a record-breaking election victory”.
Speaking to Sky News, Reed added that Burnham was doing a good job as mayor and was entitled to his view. Reed also pointed out that Burnham had committed to serving a full term as mayor of Greater Manchester, lasting until May 2028.
Asked by the Telegraph if MPs had urged him to run for the Labour leadership, Burnham 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.”
He confirmed he still harboured the ambition to become prime minister, saying: “I stood twice to be leader of the Labour party. And I think that tells you, doesn’t it?”
He set out his thoughts on how to “turn the country around”, including with higher council tax on some homes in southern England and a 50p top rate of income tax.
He said there was a “huge underpayment of tax that should now be corrected” on homes in London and the south-east because the rates were based on property valuations from 1991.
He also called for more public control of housing, energy, water and rail, backed proportional representation and signalled a willingness to work with the Liberal Democrats and Jeremy Corbyn.
And in an interview with the Guardian, Burnham – who is one of three children – threw his weight behind calls to scrap the two-child benefit limit, calling it an abhorrent policy which represents the “worst of Westminster”.
Burnham said this week that returning to “the old way of doing things in Westminster with minimal change” was an unattractive prospect and that “the threat we’re facing is increasingly an existential one”.
Asked whether he could rule out a leadership challenge against Starmer before the May local elections, Burnham said: “Life seems to be changing, and I don’t know what is the will of people in Westminster … I am at the prime minister’s disposal to help.”
Starmer has had a bruising few weeks in which two high-profile government departures and a sustained lag behind Reform UK in the polls prompted questions about his leadership.
But Burnham would face several obstacles were he to decide to mount a challenge. He would have to resign as mayor of Greater Manchester before contesting and winning a parliamentary byelection for a Commons seat.
He has thrown his weight behind the former Commons leader Lucy Powell in the race to become deputy leader after Angela Rayner’s resignation over her tax affairs.
On Wednesday, Bridget Phillipson, the education secretary, rejected claims she was No 10’s choice, suggesting instead she had been the victim of sexist briefings.
Asked whether she would welcome Burnham into the Commons as a potential leadership rival to the prime minister, she told BBC Radio 5 Live: “Well, there isn’t a vacancy, so I’m not sure which job he’d be applying for. He’s got a big job on his hands there in Manchester.”
