Does Burnham have a real mandate without a public vote?

[MyCyanBear]

Been mulling this since Monday. Burnham became Labour leader unopposed (no ballot, the nomination maths meant nobody else could even stand) and then PM without any of us voting for anything.

Then I looked it up and it's the sixth time since 2007. Brown, May, Johnson, Truss, Sunak all came in mid-term, and Sunak didn't get a members' vote either. We elect a Parliament, not a PM, so constitutionally it's all fine.

What made me pause is his defence: he says his mandate is Labour's 2024 manifesto. Which is Starmer's manifesto. While also promising the biggest change in 40 years. Both things can't really be true at once, can they?

Found a decent breakdown of the arithmetic and the precedents here: trendingsheet.com/article/burnham-no-election-mandate-does-it-matter

So does it matter? Or do we only mind when it's a PM we don't like?

He does have a mandate, Labour won an election. People plotting to have an election are destroying this country.

We must have a stable government. Labour have got a chance to get things back in the right direction.

There are positive signs that our economic conditions are improving.

The posts trying to knock Burnham down are really getting desperate...

You know perfectly well OP that under our current political system you don't elect a PM directly during a general election. You vote for an MP and then the political party that wins the most seats in the House of Commons forms the new government. Its leader becomes Prime Minister. That leader is now Andy Burnham.

The Tories went though a revolving door of PMs without a general election.

Frankly part of the media and of electorate need to stop behaving like petulant toddlers and try to create controversy, when what really matters is that we really need to get this country back on track and get stability and economic growth.

Calling for a GE and new leaders every 5 minutes is immature and idiotic and is a big part of why this country has been such a mess for the past couple of decades.

''@LagerLady
The majority of the public is dissatisfied with Labour''

This is your opinion, not a fact. Labour has in fact gone up in the polls since Burnham took over while parties like Reform are losing ground in all recent local elections and in the polls.

Like Burnham has given Sarwar a seat in the House of Lords to give him the Trade Minister job.
Sarwar who was the first person to publicly call for Starmer's resignation and Sarwar who said he would never go to the HofL.

There was a public vote , labour won, as leader of the party he becomes P.M. not difficult is it

He has a mandate as long as he keeps to Labours pre-election manifesto.

What about when the Tories were swapping PM's, did you want a GE election then? No, thought not.

And £100 billion on welfare, a good chunk of that is pensions, maybe we should stop the pensions?

It's what you said in your last sentence @MyCyanBear we only mind when it's a PM we don't like.

I didn't see the need to oust Keir Starmer personally as thought he was ok - a bit wooden but not awful. Andy Burner took a strange route to becoming PM.

Nevertheless, I don't hate the man and don't want any more public money being spent on elections so for me, I just accept that he is our new PM.

He clearly has a constitutional mandate. I don't think there should be a new election just because a political party picked a dud as their leader the first time round - why should they be locked into failure rather than choosing someone else to lead.