Andy Burnham to pitch himself as Starmer’s successor

A fringe meeting will take place this evening at Labour’s party conference in Brighton, in which it is anticipated that the mayor of Greater Manchester, will confirm that his openness to running for the leadership if Sir Keir Starmer were to step down.

Labour’s so-called “King of the North” Andy Burnham served as MP for Leigh from 2001 to 2017 when he stood down to run for the mayoralty of Greater Manchester.

After Labour under Ed Miliband failed to win the 2015 election, Mr Burnham ran for the party leadership, losing out to Jeremy Corbyn.

He also ran a failed leadership campaign in 2010.

Burnham told the BBC yesterday that he had grown “a little impatient” waiting for the party to “say something more of substance”.

He said Labour must “move beyond” saying it will set plans out ahead of an election.

He also appeared to hit out at current wrangling over internal party rules, saying: “It’d be a mistake to leave this week still fighting the internal battles with all the focus there and not setting something out that can kind of lift people.”

He went on: “The party really needs to set out something that will resonate with the country.

“The public, I think, are becoming less and less convinced by the government… so there’s an opportunity there in front of Labour, but it really, really needs to take it.”

At the Daily Mirror’s ‘Real Britain’ fringe event on Sunday, he told Labour members: “I’m just going to put this out there – shall we resolve today that we need to use this conference to get the party to commit to a National Care Service; social care on NHS terms.”