Andy Burnham latest: Labour committee urged not to block Manchester mayor’s Westminster comeback bid

Here are the Labour MPs who have reacted positively to having Andy Burnham return as an MP:

Ed Miliband has said Mr Burnham would be a massive asset and Sir Keir “needs the best possible team serving under him”.

Bridget Powell backed giving local members the final say and described Mr Burnham as “incredibly popular”.

Angela Rayner is reportedly set to support Mr Burnham’s return to Westminster, according to The Times.

Labour’s ruling body is set to decide whether Andy Burnham can stand as a by-election candidate as the Greater Manchester mayor plots a return to Westminster.

On Saturday he made clear his intention to stand in the Gorton and Denton by-election, setting up a potential return to Westminster for the Greater Manchester mayor.

Andy Burnham said he had applied to Labour’s National Executive Committee (NEC) for permission to seek selection for the Gorton and Denton by-election on Saturday.

Given the timetable for choosing a candidate set out by the NEC, the latest it can make a decision on whether Mr Burnham can apply for selection is Monday, but a decision could come as early as Sunday.

It would not be the first time that the mayor of a big city went on to become head of their country’s government, though it’s unusual. Three US presidents have done so (Andrew Johnson, Grover Cleveland, Calvin Coolidge), and in Europe there are the highly notable examples of Chancellor Willy Brandt (graduating from West Berlin), and Jacques Chirac (Paris). Here, of course, we saw Boris Johnson perfecting his populist skills in London before, in due course, graduating to the premiership. The question for 2026 is whether Andy Burnham can make a similar journey from his mayoral HQ at the Tootal Building in Manchester to 10 Downing Street. The upcoming by-election in the usually safe Labour seat of Gorton, well inside Burnham’s northern fiefdom, opens up at least the possibility that Burnham might repeat Johnson’s feat.

Burnham, a minister in the Blair and Brown governments who has been reborn as the mayor of Greater Manchester, has already been almost prime minister, you know. He may presently be the “King of the North”, enjoying marginally better ratings that the party nationally, but he could now be trying, for the third time, for an even more exalted position – leader of the Labour Party, and with it, the premiership. It was a laughable proposition for almost the whole of Sir Keir Starmer’s period of previously unassailable dominance, but suddenly, before last autumn’s party conference, in a panicky mood, the Labour Party seemed to have caught what might be termed “the Tory disease” – the delusion that a change of leader can solve all its problems, coupled with an addiction to plotting. Burnham, away from Westminster for most of the past decade, seemed to be the nearest thing they have to a fresh start.

Sean O’Grady writes:

Andy Burnham, the mayor of Greater Manchester, promises, in his request for permission to stand in a by-election to return to Westminster, “to support the work of the government, not undermine it”.

But his very presence in the House of Commons would be a distraction for the prime minister.

Read more here:

Andy Burnham’s candidacy was welcomed by Cabinet minister Ed Miliband, who was giving a speech to the Fabian Society’s annual conference in London as the mayor made his announcement.

Mr Miliband said Mr Burnham had done “an outstanding job” as mayor and would be “a massive asset” in parliament, adding he hoped the Gorton and Denton party would have “the option” of selecting him as a candidate.

He said: “My view about this is Keir needs the best possible team serving under him in parliament.”

Mr Miliband denied that Mr Burnham’s return to Westminster would raise questions about Sir Keir’s leadership, given the mayor is widely believed to have ambitions to become leader himself.

He said: “The Labour party needs to look outwards and not inwards and it needs to be loyal to Keir and it needs to get on with the job of serving the country.”

If he had turned tail at this stage and failed to seek permission to stand in the by-election in Gorton and Denton, he would have looked weak. He would have been saying, in effect, that he was happy as mayor of Greater Manchester, and willing to end his career as a successful leader of a great British city.

Now, he risks alienating some of its citizens, who may feel that he was less committed to them than they thought. Indeed, he has just shown that he is willing to break his promise to them to serve out his third term, which ends in 2028.

John Rentoul writes: