British politics has, once again, morphed into an episode of Game of Thrones; it’s packed full of backstabbing and – depending upon their political allegiances – plenty of people getting screwed.
The King in the North, Andy Burnham, fresh from skewering the double-headed beast of Reform and Restore in the Makerfield byelection, is now a newly sworn-in Westminster MP. Sir Keir Starmer, in a poignant address to the nation, waved the white flag and resigned as leader of the Labour party – though he remains prime minister. The question now is whether the next person to walk into No 10 gets there via competition or coronation.
I believe it should be the former. An ordered, and fair, transparent contest would benefit the country, the party and – given he’s the favourite – Burnham too.
While Starmer’s supporters must feel there’s nothing fair or transparent about unseating a sitting prime minister who was elected with a huge majority less than two years ago, there is something impressively ordered in the way in which he has fallen on his sword.
This, I think, is a clear indication that Labour has learned from the internecine warfare that saw the Tories churn through five prime ministers in nine years – including the unedifying sight of Boris Johnson being banned from the parliamentary estate and Liz Truss’s premiership outlived by a vegetable.
The final U-turn conducted by our current PM (deciding not to fight on after promising he would) can’t have been easy. On a personal level, he must have felt angry, exhausted and betrayed. In his resignation speech, he was right to point to his government’s achievements – even if some were overstated. Strengthening renters’ rights, reducing NHS waiting lists, closing asylum hotels and going some way to restoring the UK’s reputation abroad: no mean feat given the mess the Tories left behind, a largely hostile legacy media and a real-life version of GoT’s Aerys II Targaryen installed in the White House.
Today’s Daily Mail front page, ‘Messiah without a Mandate’, is a taste of what’s to come. A selection process would help take the sting out of that criticism
There is, however, much more to be done on every front. Whoever leads the country next must do what Starmer couldn’t: identify a cohesive set of values that produce a coherent set of policies, which in turn create a realistic, optimistic vision of the future that voters can rally around. Communication is key. Anything less puts our country at serious risk of a Reform-led coalition government in 2029 – nothing short of a disaster.
This brings me back to why Labour must ensure its next leader is put through a competitive process – even a limited one. The path to No 10 is strewn with political landmines. One of the biggest: does the next prime minister have a democratic mandate to govern in the absence of a general election? Leading the charge is Nigel Farage, who – having accepted a five-million-quid bung from a cryptobillionaire – had the cheek to claim that if the UK didn’t head to polls immediately it would be a “banana republic”.
Burnham with the Parliamentary Labour Party after his swearing-in as MP for Makerfield at the Houses of Parliament, June 22, 2026. Photo: Dan Kitwood / Getty
This, of course, is pure political opportunism. In the UK we elect political parties to govern, not presidents – it’s therefore perfectly reasonable for a new party leader to become the prime minister. Added to which, Farage’s hypocrisy is staggering: five of his MPs are former Tories who defected to Reform – using his logic, they should have held byelections to legitimise their positions. Needless to say, none did.
That said, this criticism will dog the next PM. Today’s Daily Mail front-page headline, “Messiah without a Mandate”, is a taste of what’s to come. A selection process – involving party hustings and live debates on national television – would help take the sting out of that criticism.
Labour’s enemies aside, there is a real risk that the general public, including Labour voters, feel they are being taken for granted. A contest could act as mitigation by providing an opportunity to persuade them that it’s not only 24,000 voters in Makerfield who have decided our next prime minister – but hundreds of Labour MPs, thousands of party members and affiliated unions too. If Starmer’s consistently poor personal approval ratings showed anything, it’s that connecting with the public is crucial to a leader’s political survival.
However, events are moving rapidly in Westminster. The former health secretary, Wes Streeting, who would have been Burnham’s chief rival, has already thrown in the towel. The public will – probably rightly – assume that Burnham and Streeting have done a backroom deal in which the former promised the latter a top job in return for stepping aside. In the post-Epstein/Mandelson era, it strikes me as astonishing that Labour politicians have not learned one big lesson: the merest whiff of a cover-up and the public will turn against you.
Finally, a contest would benefit the contenders – especially the new MP for Makerfield. In a tweet, Streeting claimed a leadership battle would be a waste of time, saying: “We could spend the summer exaggerating small differences, or we can roll up our sleeves and help him [Burnham] to deliver the change our party and our country needs.” I disagree.
A Daily Mail front page spins Burnham’s arrival in Westminster as a “left-wing coup”, 23 June 2026
Andy Burnham has a strong track record as a hugely popular directly elected regional mayor. However, it's been nine years since he was an MP – and even longer since he was in cabinet. Since then, there have been tectonic shifts in national and international politics. Two-party politics has fractured, Brexit has choked the economy, the UK’s complicity in the Gaza genocide has alienated Labour voters and foreign interference in our democracy grows by the day. Burnham has not been deep in the trenches with any of it. And he knows it.
Beth Rigby at Sky News has reported that Starmer rejected a transition plan that would have allowed Burnham time to prepare for government. The effect is that, with nominations for the leadership opening on 9 July and set to close on 15 July, if no one else steps forward, Burnham could be crowned by the time the World Cup is over. A leadership contest would elongate that process and give Burnham time to find one or two big-ticket items he could deliver on within the parameters of the Labour manifesto and Rachel Reeves’s fiscal rules, both of which he’s promised to stick to, at least for the time being.
A summer over which Team Burnham could stress-test his positions, face down the friendly fire of leadership rivals and practice tough political interviews would have more benefits than costs. It would give Burnham the time he needs to hone his broad ideas about “Manchesterism” and spell out to the public what he actually stands for – before the war of attrition that is governing modern Britain gets under way again in the autumn. To do otherwise risks the tale of the King of the North becoming the Emperor’s New Clothes.
Sangita Myska is the Nerve’s political commentator and a broadcast journalist.