Starmer v Burnham: will it split Labour?

斯塔默与伯恩厄姆之争:这会不会分裂工党?

Today in Focus

2026-01-27

29 分钟
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The prime minister may have seen off the challenge for the moment – but what will be the cost to his leadership? Peter Walker reports. Help support our independent journalism at theguardian.com/infocus
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  • This is The Guardian.

  • Today, will Keir Starmer come to regret blocking Andy Burnham?

  • Ever since Andy Burnham abandoned Westminster to become Greater Manchester's first ever mayor in 2017,

  • he has been dogged with questions about returning to Parliament for the top job.

  • I am not going to sit here this morning and kind of rule out what might or might not happen in the future.

  • Is that a never or is that just a not now?

  • I mean I hesitate because immediately people write stories but it's not a never answer but it's not.

  • I'm not going to go and sort of say every conversation I have with every MP.

  • I can't launch a leadership campaign.

  • I'm not in Parliament.

  • He never hid his ambition to become PM one day.

  • And he couldn't really, given that he had tried and failed twice to become Labour Party leader.

  • But time and again,

  • he insisted that he was perfectly happy back in his beloved North and that he had no plans to get back down to that there London.

  • The party's been too London centric for too long.

  • Policies haven't been put forward in places like Burnley in mind,

  • you know, the London perspective on life.

  • dominates national policy so in the north he needed help.

  • Then on Saturday night he finally cracked.

  • It's deadline day for Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham.