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

Yes, but as I said if they have not been leading from the front and making noises about issues that mean something to large numbers of people - Boris/Brexit - Farage/Immigration they are just shop dummies holding the place until the public punish them and their government at the first opportunity, THAT is how our democracy actually works, at the ballot box, surely recent elections and the surge for Reform tell you that?

How is it undemocratic? He has to be voted in.

Mmmm, the interesting thing about Starmer is he led his party to a colossal majority whilst never being particularly popular himself.

Burnham WAS a Blairite - but he shifted to the far left.

He's VERY GOOD on trans rights.

Getting him in to PM this way is extremely clever by Labour - and could result in some very good news in 2029.

I genuinely believe that this is what you get with large majorities-the fractions turn against each other as they aren’t worried about the opposition. Saw it with the Tories, now exactly the same with Labour. Starmer should have stood up to the left and not done one U-turn after another. He’s terribly weak and that’s why we’re in this mess.

As Labour supporter I don't think we can waste the next three years (could be the only three years of government we get in a generation!) with a PM who hasn't got a grip on getting things done. And I can't see any way we'd win another election with him as leader.
So as painful and difficult as it's going to be I think something has to change.

We may disagree on this, as I think Keir Starmer has got things done, but I agree that we have passed the point of no return and therefore I hope the party will throw its weight behind Andy Burnham, as Wes Streeting very wisely has just done.

You're all running so scared. It's hilarious.

He was a Blarite a very long time ago. He’s changed.

You don"t really get how politics and "animal spirits" work do you? People hate feeling conned, they are about to be hit with a massive wave of inflation and KS is still babbling about "diversity" and a bunch of student union level politicians are wriggling about trying to be PM to satisfy their own egos, this government are going to be heavily punished now at every voting opportunity.

That's now how it works though. He might lose the by-election - and I don't think he's the shoe-in as party leader that you think he is (and I am a Labour member). I'd go for Ed Miliband if I had to choose, although I am not a fan of ditching sitting Prime Ministers and think the current debacle isn't doing much except undermining public faith in politicians even more.

It was the exact same as when we had Liz Truss and then Rishi Sunak foisted on us, despite the electorate having no say in that either. The party chooses its leader, who may or may not be Prime Minister, not the people.

Whereas elder statesman Farage is going to usher in a new era of sunlit uplands?

The good news being Farage as PM you mean?

Mackersfield aren't voting for the PM any more than the people of Ilford North were when they elected (and nearly didn't elect!) Wes Streeting. They'll be voting for an MP who then has the opportunity to challenge the PM and stand for leadership if they have sufficient support from Labour MPs, and then it will be the Labour Party membership who choose.

Obviously it's a bizarre situation in that they by-election has only been contrived for this purpose but they're still just voting for an MP who like any other Labour MP would be able to mount a challenge to the PM.

What an odd response to a post that pointed out that you were factually wrong when you blew out that Boris Johnson had done the exact same thing as Andy Burnham is doing.

A more appropriate response might have been: Yes, you're correct. I still support what Burnham is doing but I was wrong to say that Johnson had done the exact same thing.

Unfortunately, you are ungracious and a bit numb. I imagine this isn't news to you or yours.

I'm no fan of Farage but I don't think Andy Burnham could win a GE as head of the Labour Party. He's another figure - like Corbyn - that's popular with the members but isn't taken so seriously by the general public.

The op is nuts, he has to be voted in so why the hysteria?

He aligns himself with trade unions. That tells me everything I need to know about his would be governance. No wonder the back benders are rubbing their hands. Starmer, for all his uselessness knows exactly which way this will go if Burnham gets in.

Edit: back benchers

He understands that mass immigration has gone too far and people want the brakes applied and the UK to run it"s own laws and borders

He understands how the bond market works

Those two alone put him streets ahead of anything the present crop of PM candidates have to offer.

You find the downfall of the UK and a hard-left PM hilarious? You won’t be laughing when we end up with a Reform government thanks to Labour. All this will do is make them even more unpopular with the electorate than they already are. But, keep on laughing while you still can 🙄

Wes Streeting is in a nearby constituency to me - he won by 532 votes and if the issues in the ME carry on, will be most certainly looking for his own 'safe seat' come 2029. There is zero chance he will be re-elected where he is now unless something dramatic happens to shift course. I cannot believe that no one is commenting on this.

Andy Burnham may or may not win - there is no reason for great optimism and Labour may well deliver us with another Reform MP and the wind in their sales, ta very much.

I guess Manchester will elect another Labour mayor.

We don’t have a presidential system. We have Cabinet government, in which the PM is formally ‘first among equals’. There are all sorts of reasons why the PM might change mid-term - Chamberlain/Churchill Callaghan/Wilson, Blair/Brown come to mind. It’s irrelevant whether the successor was elected during the last general election - perfectly valid for them to have entered the HoC via a by-election, sine they happen fairly often. Theoretically we could have a PM who was in the Lords rather than the Commons and hadn’t been elected at all. Except they couldn’t really command the confidence of the House as they wouldn’t be allowed in it.

The only difference with Burnham is that everyone knows why he’s doing it. But is ambition a bad thing? Especially as so many people think he would be good for party and country. These are very unusual circumstances and he has a lot of hurdles to go through before he’s anywhere near being PM. It’s not a done deed and he’s risking a lot, which is an indication of how important he thinks it is.

This thread pretty much confirms that British politics is now fundamentally unserious. It’s all just a big old laugh to some people, a live soap opera.

We’re fucked really.

That"s right, being popular in Manchester isn"t necessarily interchangeable with being popular across the whole UK, I"m not sure he fully gets this though?

Sorry to burst your bubble, but Reform won't win a GE. The best they can hope for is a hung parliament, which would make them the official opposition. They would not form a government in those circumstances, because no other party would enter a coalition with them. It would be like France, where RN are consistently the largest party, but kept out of office by a grand coalition of the sane.