Starmer - should he stay or should he go? What difference would it make either way?

[IwantToRetire]

Four ministers resign over Starmer leadership as Lammy says no-one has support to stand against PM
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/c1e2n923v1lt

More than 100 Labour MPs have signed a statement urging Sir Keir Starmer not to stand down
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/starmer-resign-cabinet-live-updates-b2974932.html

More than 100 Labour MPs sign statement against Starmer leadership challenge
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2026/may/12/labour-mps-sign-statement-against-starmer-leadership-challenge

Streeting has backed Burnham in his bid for the leadership, what an embarrassment if he loses the bi election.

In what respect?

She seems sensible, straightforward and unconnected from the Labour Party psychodrama so far. I prefer her to Rayner who, to me, seems too interested in using her position to her own benefit.

Meanwhile, canvassing is already getting underway in Makerfield

Raynor is too invested in ten trade unions , she would have to agree to all the pay rises..

I'll be interested to see if during the Party leadership contest we can finally get a fully realised set of policies/vision from Labour for national renewal.

So far, we only have Streeting's resignation letter to give us an idea of an alternative vision, and his view is that Labour need to win back Reform voters who he seems to see as either duped by Reform or racist.

Currently, high level Labour MPs generally give me the feeling that they would prefer a different set of voters with different priorities than what currently exists in the UK. Like the Tories before them, Labour keep telling the electorate that they hear what the people are telling them but then they go off and prioritise things that the voters hate.

Although they’re only there because people voted them in. The backbenchers will try to go back to Labour’s ‘core values’, which isn’t surprising.

If there’s a leadership contest they’ll swing left in all likelihood.

Quite. I have yet to see ANY of the Labour wittering have any contact at all with the electorate, any messages from the electorate or any real vision. They just blank whatever a voter says.

Farmers and anyone with any links to farming now hate them
Disabled people
The elderly
Parents of children with SEND, friends and extended family of, all teachers and anyone else working in and around that area
Schools
Women who aren't happy to hand their rights away and abandon child safeguarding
Employers
Small businesses

And this is Labour. I still don't believe that list above. These policies are bloody awful, damaging and deeply hated ones, and yet their answer is just to trample blindly on while congratulating each other on how wonderful they are.

It's about as tone deaf and stupid as parachuting a Labour guy into a seat in an area he knows nothing about, with no interest or care for the area or the people, who will be a useless MP because as the PM he'll have no time to spare for them, and which will cost millions from the council budget taking it away from the services and people of the council, for the unnecessary by election for no other reason than the man wants to be king.

And they think the voters will meekly vote for this.

I believe Makerfield is part of Greater Manchester so I don't agree that Burnham would know nothing about the area. In fact I imagine its locality to Manchester was one reason why Josh Simons was errm .... I'm going to call it 'persuaded' to stand down. Whether Makerfield constituents will be impressed at being dragged unnecessarily into an election is another matter.

Izzard had links with Brighton and shared them widely. He wasn't voted in, in definite part, because he knew and cared nothing about the local immediate issues important to the voters. Another candidate who wanted crowning with a position to use for his own personal agenda. It's a big risk to take with voters.

It's about as tone deaf and stupid as parachuting a Labour guy into a seat in an area he knows nothing about,

Burnham was MP for Leigh, which is the next-door constituency; he knows the area well enough.

I think he is backing Burnham for Makerfield, not for Leadership??

Double post

Burnham has been either a Manchester MP or Manchester mayor since 2001, Mayor for 9 of those years and re-elected twice as Mayor. The idea that he is some sort of foreigner who will know nothing about the local problems in Makerfield is laughable.

Starmer is letting him apply to be MP, not supporting him for the leadership.

As for Boris doing a decent job as Major of London - there were different opinions on that with the word "lazy" featuring quite often. However taking over from Ken Livingstone undoubtably helped how he was seen. But Boris did subsequently become PM, maybe that's an omen for you.

Wasn't it Boris's right-hand man who did most of the good stuff while he was Mayor (can't remember his name)?

Its clear, even allowing for a bit of media manipulation, that many people in Makerfield not only know who Burnham is, but they like and respect him. Also (which I think is great because it is my opinion) that he should never have been banned from standing to begin with.

So seems to me this has all happened because of Starmer's inability to manage.

And dont even forget that despite everyone trying to say Labour had a landside win, they didn't.

So many people just didn't vote, or took their Tory vote to give to Reform that Starmer became PM on a much smaller total vote than Corbyn got when standing to be PM and lost.

So Starmer is the apathy vote.

And sadly has indicated that is just what he is.

Its like a never ending cycle of make a decision, it become clear it was the wrong decision, so make another decision.

I dont think it is any surprise that so many people feel peed off.

Because the media focus on his FUs and the Labour in fighting makes it seem like everything is some sort of failure.

You would hope that people in Wigan would know Burnham, since he is the mayor of Greater Manchester, of which Wigan is a part.

Just because Burnham could beat Reform in Wigan, doesn't necessarily translate to him being able to beat Reform at a national level. And of course, any new PM at this stage would be subject to claims of 'no legitimacy' especially if he developed a new manifesto programme/direction to that which Labour was elected on.

Wiganites are an odd bunch. They still give their address as Lancashire, because they don't recognise themselves as belonging to Greater Manchester.

They voted heavily for Burnham to be mayor, but I don't think it's a given by any means that he wins the by-election. I do think he's the only Labour candidate who could win.

I'd love to know who the big personality is who Burnham has lined up to succeed him as mayor. I have a sinking feeling it might be Gary Neville, because lots of Labour folx seem to feel he's a proletarian everyman who really understands the working class. Mind you, if it's going to be a celebrity election there's nothing to prevent Reform running Morrissey.

Saw this article discussing Starmer and his approach to politics recommended on TwiX:

https://x.com/wself/status/2054946706723160363

'Because the important thing about Starmer is not that he is uniquely unpleasant, nor uniquely managerial, nor uniquely hollow. The important thing is that he is the long historical result of a society that has proceduralized itself to the point where procedure no longer mediates trust but replaces it. Starmer is not an aberration within contemporary Britain. He is one of its purest expressions.

This is why the old heuristic of the “good bloke” matters. A good bloke is not simply a nice person. The good bloke belongs to an older and thicker social world: trade union branches, pubs, regiments, chapels, bowling clubs, football terraces, local parties, old Labour wards, Masonic lodges, working men’s institutes. The good bloke may be flawed, even corrupt, but he is legible. You know where he stands. His authority arises from embeddedness.

The nice person, by contrast, emerges from the lower-middle-managerial order: respectable, conscientious, emotionally literate, permanently anxious to appear decent. The nice person follows procedure because procedure has replaced organic trust. The nice person says “I completely understand your concerns” while mentally opening a safeguarding flowchart.
Starmer’s entire political personality oscillates between these two poles. He desperately wants to appear a good bloke while possessing all the sociological characteristics of the nice person. That is the hidden tension visible in every gesture, every speech rhythm, every photograph in which he attempts awkwardly to project ordinariness through rolled-up sleeves, football references or prosecutorial sternness.'

https://nitter.net/wself/status/2054946706723160363 - for those without TwiX account

They still give their address as Lancashire.

I get that, Wigan isn't Manchester. Both Wigan and Lancashire are old places with lots of history. 'Greater Manchester' is admin, nothing to be proud about.

Maybe its the difference between the somewheres and anywhere?

The real issue is that British politics no longer properly mediates between society and state because the old intermediary structures — parties, unions, churches, local associations, civic corporations in the Hegelian sense — have decayed into managerial shells. Executive authority therefore floats free from lived social embeddedness while still attempting to simulate it theatrically.
That is why the hatred of Starmer feels oddly impersonal even when it is intensely personal. Citizens attack him as an individual while unconsciously recognizing a much larger structure behind him.

This is probably true, too.

I think Starmers fate was sealed shortly after Southport. He appeared annoyed with peoples reaction, as if it was nothing to do with them.

But perhaps its because of the lack of intermediate structures to communicate with?

Does there have to be a mayoral byelection style contest if Burnham resigns?

Asking because I don’t know how it works with mayoral roles.

Gary Neville is quite an astute and admirable person and seems to have a real, and natural, business brain.