Much as I want someone to replace Starmer, this decision is not a big surprise, really. Aside from Starmer’s desire for self-preservation, Burnham becoming an MP would have forced a mayoral by-election in Manchester which Labour might well have lost (on current polling, Reform had a slight edge). Burnham had a chance to run as an MP in 2024 without causing that problem and decided not to, so it’s hard to feel too sorry for him.
There was basically nothing Starmer could do to come out of this looking good. Block a leadership contender from standing? Looks weak. Let someone come and challenge you because you’re scared you’ll look weak if you don’t? Also looks weak!
It was definitely a factor but it wasn’t the only factor. If I was on the NEC and I thought it was a slam dunk to win the mayoralty again, I might have argued for letting Burnham back into Parliament. Since it clearly isn’t, I’d have voted to block him. The other thing about your rhetorical question is that it’s easy to turn it around: ‘Does anyone genuinely think that Burnham’s professional ambitions weren’t the primary factor in his decision to stand?’
I would also love a bit of Chaos with Ed, but apparently he isn’t actually interested any longer.
Yeah, agree Starmer was in a real catch-22 here.
It’s not like Burnham pretended it was anything else, he’s not Robert Jenrick.
That’s not how weakness, or democracy, works.
This is just another piece of evidence that Labour care not for their founding principles. The PLP care more about their individual powers and privileges than they do the country or their party at large. Rallying to protect Dear Leader in the same way the Tories did for Johnson. A pathetic excuse for a Labour party and government.
He would’ve looked weak because there were obvious reasons not to permit Burnham to stand as an MP that are unrelated to Starmer. Why ignore them? Starmer’s critics would say: because he can’t afford not to ignore them, because he’s weak.
There was no win in this situation.
Look, I try not to bother with this kind of content-free ‘comment’ but just factually, this was a matter for the NEC, not the PLP, something it says at the top of the page you wrote this comment on. Given you can’t even get this kind of simple fact straight, what makes you think that your views on the far more complex topic of Labour’s founding principles (or how they’re viewed today) are of any value to anyone?
You’ve responded to plenty of my comments with vitriol before so I don’t understand the beginning of your comment at all.
The PLP is a part of the NEC. There were PLP members who voted.
The PLP is the part of the party that consistently shows itself to be against Labour’s values. I said the PLP to distinguish it from the rest of the Labour movement.
My views are as valid as anyone’s. I understand now why we’ve clashed before. I thought you were a leftist stuck on the hope of the Labour party because that’s what you’ve always known. But as you’re trying to dismiss my opinions as if you’re an authority figure, I see now I was wrong and you’re right at home under Keir’s authoritarians.
No, it isn’t.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Executive_Committee_of_the_Labour_Party_(UK)
Every one with an MP next to their name is in the PLP…
Yes, it includes representatives of the PLP. This is not the same thing as the PLP being part of the NEC.
An entity like the NEC or PLP doesn’t exist without its members. It’s not an ethereal being.
Like, that’s how all groups of humans work. We give the group a name for ease of communication, but the group is the sum of its parts.
If half of the NEC’s officer roles are made of PLP members then the PLP is probably a part of the NEC. Add in that they’re only there explicitly because of their membership of the PLP then it’s fair to say that the PLP is part of the NEC.
You do realise what an officer is in most organisational structures, right?
It’s not ‘fair’ to say that it’s part of the NEC, because it isn’t. They’re separate organisations.