Andy Burnham - how can this be allowed?

[Boopybop]

I know that there is a long way to go over the coming weeks, with by-elections and leadership challenges. But fundamentally - how can it be right that a man who was not even a candidate in the General Election, was therefore not voted for in the General Election - become Prime Minister? Effectively, the people of Makerfield are selecting the country’s new Prime Minister (as it is pretty obvious that AB would win a leadership contest).

This feels wholly undemocratic in every way.

AIBU - Andy Burnham has every right to become PM

AINBU - it is not right that a by-election in Makerfield can determine who the next Prime Minister will be

This would be a better argument if you were objecting to the system we have and advocating for substantial change. I can at least understand and respect arguments for eg a directly elected PM, I prefer the current system but there is at least a discussion to be had there.

Whereas objecting because the person wasn't elected at the last GE is just stupid. By-elections happen all the time, and are a normal part of our system.

An LBC presenter made a good point today that it’s short term pain for long term gain ( possibly ) If they have this leadership challenge soon ( with Andy Burnham or not ) then in a year’s time it’ll be old news and labour can crack on with a new PM. All very simplistic I know, but it made sense to me and yesterday it didn’t. Keir Starmer is weak at the moment and it’s bound to happen sooner or later. He can only bunker down for so long. I feel they will just wait now for this by election and see what happens there.
It’s a long haul, especially for AB.

Posted to soon if the next PM hapoened to have a constituancy in cleethorpes the next PM would be voted in by the people of cleethorpes.

You means the ginger growler, the FRAUDULENT OPPORTUNIST who defaulted on £40,000 tax!
She, who has a hotline to HMRC (as do all MP’s)

She, who demanded that she get an immediate answer rather than wait in line like the rest of us.

She, who purportedly has paid no fine when we are penalised even for submitting a tax return late.

She, who overvalued her family home so she could take more from her son’s trust fund!
That shyster!

First post sums it up. You don’t seem to understand how our political system works…

That is a good point as well. The leadership challenge won’t be easy to win. Andy Burnham lost out twice to very left leaning candidates ( Jeremy Corbyn and Ed Milliband )
He has several hurdles to get to becoming PM.
His obviously going for it I think , but so are Reform. They are probably looking forwards to this battle.

You vote for the party not the person. I think people forget this.

The constituents of Makerfield voted for an MP to represent them less than two years ago. Now he is standing down not due to illness or some other adversity but purely to get Andy Burnham back into parliament so he can run for the leadership. I think Josh Simmons is treating the people who elected him with a total lack respect and if I lived there I would be voting for whoever was most likely to beat Andy Burnham.

The leadership part is probably easier than the by-election.

The difference is that Liz Truss was a sitting and elected MP at the previous GE. Andy Burnham is not, and is seeking to become an MP purely to become PM.

But what is wrong with this? He is still following exactly the same pathway as other would-be leaders -- being elected as MP by constituents and then elected as PLP leader by an electorate that includes MPs who themselves have been elected by their own constituents.

What difference does it make that his election as MP occurred in a by-election?

And what difference does it make that "he is seeking to become an MP purely in order to become PM"? For one thing, what makes you think that he has this sole motivation? Presumably becoming PM is a means to an end for him -- the end being a more-effective implementation of Labour values and policies than Starmer has achieved. And for another thing, we have no idea what motivations any other people standing for election as MPs have. Perhaps they too are standing because they want to be PM. So what. As long as they aren't motivated by something illegal/corrupt, such as distorting policy in return for shady money, all is good.

To my mind, what makes these mid-term changes of leadership of governing parties problematic isn't Andy Burham's pathway but the right of party members to participate in the vote for the choice of leader. That means, as with Liz Truss and other Tory party leadership flip-flops, that the PM is partly chosen by activists rather than members of parliament whose authority to choose a PM has been conferred on them by their constituency electorates..

I am old enough to remember Andy Burnham the first time and he was 'average' in parliament. I distinctly remember him literally running away from a journalist asking him questions when he was health secretary. When did he become this 'saviour' of the party/country?

A person who didn’t even stand in the ‘actual’ General Election.

To be fair, he was blocked fron standing in the - naturally occurring - Gorton and Denton by-election earlier this year by Labour's National Executive Committee. The official reason was that it would trigger an election for Manchester mayor which ''would use substantial amounts of taxpayers' money and resources". As dissatisfaction with Sir Keir was already considerable by then, there were a lot of people who didn't buy that 'reason'.

He wouldn't have seen any reason to stand in the GE in 2024 because at that time it was very clear Labour were going to win and he would have been happy with that without giving up the mayoralty. But of course no-one at that point knew what a shit show it was going to turn out to be.

And right now of course, it's a much bigger shit show.

It’s completely false to say those voters will be "choosing the next Prime Minister".

They might choose someone other than Burnham, and that someone would not be the next PM. Even if they choose Burnham, there’s no guarantee that he would be chosen by the party as its leader.

I suspect you know that you are talking misleading nonsense but don’t care.

Please. You know damn well that people vote for the person first, policies second. Just because it makes you feel important to claim everyone else is thick, doesn’t make it not true.

If so, then why can Simons not just hand his seat over to Burnham?

They are the same Party and by this logic, it would be a simple person swap because the Party remains the same. It would still be Labour, just with a different person.

In 1997, it was virtually a foregone conclusion that the good people of Sedgefield were electing the next Prime Minister. Was that unfair? I don't recall anyone complaining at the time.

Reform will throw everything to ensure Burnham doesnt win.
That includes having some posters on here.

We do not vote for a PM.
We vote for the party.
Burnham may be voted in as an MP... what happens after that is anyone's guess.
If he wishes to stand as party leader his fellow MP's decide whether to support that or not.... the general public has no say- which is standard.

You might do that, but many/most of us don’t.

Well, as PPs have said, if he won he'd just be an MP until and if he won a leadership challenge. Makerfield would be electing a PM in exactly the same way as any other constituency that has a party leader standing to be an MP and govern with the largest party just like Holborn and St Pancras did. Although I get what you mean, it will feel like a coronation - but only if Burnham gets past the many obstacles in his way.

As an aside, I don't think he should be allowed to stand. He's been an MP and chose to resign and I don't think election candidates should get a second go, whether that be carpetbagger Farage, someone like Mary Creagh who lost and was incomprehensibly picked to stand again, or an opportunist like Burnham who has his eyes on any prize going. Other people will make far better candidates anyway and these have had their chance and in Burnham's case thrown it away.

And that's fair enough, but it's not undemocratic. It's an incredibly basic piece of information that MPs not completing a full term is common. By-elections often punish incumbent parties if they've done something the electorate don't like rather than tragically died in office. Albeit usually that's sleaze, criminal offences or similar... but any Makerfield voters who don't like it can have their say.

Tin foil hat always prepped and ready to go 😵‍💫

All hype. My mother lives in Old Trafford-she thinks he is a prick and so do many others.

He is just a wind bag, a blow hard, who makes a big puff of fuck all and persuades the unthinking that he has been a big success.

I'm sure they will. So will Labour.

What i find odd from someone who takes an outside look at politics is that the labour party, that bastion of morality and doing the right thing outside of power, quickly turns into the tory party when in power. However, the tories do everything in secret and without making themselves look sleazy (in regards to party back stabbing anyway)

If you recall Blair promised to stand down for Brown who put him in power and only did so when the shit was about to hit the fan and the gloss had worn off.

One only has to wonder why someone would walk.away from a job that pays £100k a year after years of working to get there to give the job to someone else.