Any survival hope for PM meant shutting Burnham out - but Starmer and his team can't predict what comes next

It has been a frenzied 48 hours of Labour leadership speculation after Andy Burnham tried to throw his hat in the ring for a return to parliament.

On Sunday, Starmer’s allies emphatically tried to shut that down, as the NEC’s panel voted 8-1 to block the Manchester mayor’s bid. Only the deputy Labour leader and Greater Manchester MP Lucy Powell supported Burnham, with the chair, home secretary Shabana Mahmood, abstaining (as is customary).

The reasons cited were concerns over the unnecessary costs of having to hold an election for the Manchester metro mayor during important local, Welsh and Scottish elections, and the prospect of Reform running a divisive campaign in the city and greater Manchester region.

Polling suggests that Reform would have a real prospect of taking the region in what would have become a hugely symbolic battle – rather like the fight for the West Midlands mayor which Labour won from the Conservatives ahead of the 2024 election.

But there is also bucketloads of politics in this, as the frenzy over a possible return of Burnham to parliament has shown. In blocking Burnham, the PM and his team have decided it’s better they take the short-term pain and inevitable backlash than allow the psychodrama of the Starmer-Burnham leadership battle to run for weeks in the May elections, drowning out policy discussions and making the party look divided.

That backlash was already under way on Sunday as MPs on the left of the party took to X to vent their frustration. Jon Trickett posted on X: “Strong leaders don’t hide from talent, they make common cause.”

Neil Duncan-Jordan MP said the “authoritarian factionalism of the Labour right is tearing us apart” and “this stitch-up puts control before country”.

John McDonnell wrote this: “Do not underestimate the depth of anger people will feel about this disgusting decision? If you think it strengthens you, I tell you it will simply strengthen your demise. You could have shown magnanimous leadership but instead it’s cowardice.”

All of that landed less than 40 minutes after the decision was announced. It gives you a sense of the divisions and anger in the party.

Because both options were awful. Allow Burnham to run and amplify the drumbeat of a leadership challenge that is already constant around Westminster, making it impossible for Starmer to make his case to the country in the run-up to the May elections (already hard given the constant Trump crises that pull him into international affairs) or block him and face the fury of the left, further eroding party discipline, while making Burnham a martyr.

It is likely that this decision will only harden opposition against Starmer and make his job even more difficult in the coming months as he grapples with a pile of difficult issues – the social media ban for under-16s, jury trials, ground rents – with an increasingly ungovernable party.

Until this moment, the prime minister has been benefitting from the support of the soft left in the party – see Lucy Powell’s interview with me last week in which she urged colleagues not to undermine Sir Keir – as MPs rowed in behind the prime minister because the alternative, Wes Streeting, would, from their perspective, be worse. In blocking the return of their man to parliament, the PM could now lose that support.

It could be a very lonely place indeed, as Streeting allies on the centre-right of the party continue to mobilise and agitate.

As one anti-Streeting MP put it to me: “It’s not Burnham who has been causing the leadership speculation – that has been coming from Streeting’s side. Now those on that wing of the party have got Burnham out of the way – useful for Wes, and the kickback for that will land on Starmer.

Streeting allies believe this “will finish Keir off” over time as the prime minister finds himself increasingly isolated by a party that has lost faith in his leadership. “He’s just so unpopular with MPs,” one Streeting backer told me. “Funnily enough it’s the soft left keeping him alive because they don’t want Wes, but blocking Andy will majorly piss them off.”

For the PM’s allies, the alternative was worse. They clearly concluded that Burnham would likely mount a challenge after May should Labour do, as expected, terribly in the local, Scottish and Welsh elections.

There are those around Burnham who tell me that wasn’t the case, and that what he said in his letter about not seeking to undermined the PM was true. But there is no trust between these politicians, and the Starmer team clearly didn’t believe that.

Burnham’s backers can shout and scream all they like, but blocking this key rival means that a candidate that would surely storm it home with the membership against Starmer can take a shot. To my mind, any hope that Starmer has of surviving as prime minister meant shutting Burnham out.

But what the PM and his team can’t know is what that gamble unleashes now.