Angela Rayner is set to throw her weight behind Andy Burnham‘s bid to return as an MP on Saturday.
The former deputy prime minister is preparing to publicly back the Manchester mayor at Labour’s North West regional conference, it was reported on Friday night.
The issue of where Mr Burnham could stand in a looming by-election was on Friday gearing up to be a North-South battle, making Ms Rayner’s intervention potentially explosive.
But former health secretary Mr Burnham will have to make his mind up quickly. The Labour Party set a deadline for candidates to seek approval from the National Executive Committee (NEC) of 5pm on Saturday afternoon, with applications due by midnight on Sunday.
Meanwhile, Sir Keir Starmer was put on notice by Labour’s Jo White, the head of a group of 43 Red Wall MPs.
She warned there should be no ‘London stitch-up’ to stop Mr Burnham contesting the by-election for the Gorton and Denton seat in Greater Manchester after it was vacated by disgraced former minister Andrew Gwynne on Thursday.
One Labour figure said the fight would be the ‘Andy v Keir show’ and that they expected Sir Keir’s powerful chief of staff, Morgan McSweeney, to block Mr Burnham when the ruling NEC puts together the longlist of candidates.
Ms White warned on Friday against interference from No 10. ‘Let the North decide who their Labour candidate should be. A London stitch-up will be a disaster for Labour,’ she wrote on X.
Angela Rayner pictured canvassing in Birmingham with Labour mayor Andy Burnham in May last year. On Saturday she is set to throw her weight behind him in his bid to return as an MP
Meanwhile, Andrea Egan, the new Unison general secretary, criticised ‘control-freakery’ in the party, writing on X: ‘I’m sure all trade unionists expect a democratic process for Gorton & Denton in which local party members decide who they want to represent them.’
Mr Burnham kept his silence on Friday but is due to face questions at Saturday’s conference. He previously said that ‘people shouldn’t rush to conclusions’, before Mr Gwynne officially stepped down.
Mr Gwynne announced he was vacating his seat this week, on health grounds. He was suspended from the party last February over offensive WhatsApp messages.
Mr Burnham faces numerous hurdles to fight the seat, including having to stand down from his current role, being approved by the NEC and seeing off Reform UK.
While Labour won the seat with 51 per cent in 2024, it is now a three-way marginal. Reform has vowed to ‘throw everything’ at the seat, and Green Party leader Zack Polanski is said to be eyeing it, introducing another curveball that could split the Left-wing vote.
On Friday, health minister Stephen Kinnock said Mr Burnham was doing a good job as mayor, with the thinly-veiled suggestion that he should stay in that post.
And deputy PM David Lammy also warned that the party did not want another leader because it would result in an election.
Mr Burnham, mayor of Greater Manchester since 2017, was the MP for Leigh from 2001 to 2017, and has stood for the Labour leadership on two occasions.
