Ex-minister Andy Burnham boasts Labour would have held more Red Wall seats at the 2019 election if he had beaten Jeremy Corbyn to the Labour leadership in 2015 in further sign he is plotting to lead party
- He plans to run for leadership after the next election if he has enough support
- Burnham was distant second behind Corbyn in 2015 Labour leadership election
- Served as a shadow minister before quitting national politics for Manchester job
- But he has been buoyed by a strong display in mayoral election last week
Andy Burnham claimed Labour would have held on to more northern seats at the 2019 election if he had been party leader instead of Jeremy Corbyn.
The Greater Manchester mayor made the claim as he revealed he would run for the leadership again after the next election if he had enough support.
Mr Burnham, a former health secretary under Gordon Brown, came a distant second to hard Left icon Mr Corbyn in the 2015 Labour leadership election, polling just 19 per cent of votes.
He served as a shadow minister before quitting national politics to become mayor of Manchester before Labour’s catastrophic display at the 2019 election, its worst since the 1930s.
But buoyed by an increased majority in Manchester in the election last week, and Keir Starmer’s increasing difficulty over Labour’s wider results, Mr Burnham has learned towards a new run at the party leadership.
Speaking to the Observer today he was deeply critical over modern Labour’s failure to take a stronger stance on major policy issues, particularly social care reform, and said the party lacked the boldness to attempt any move on the scale of its greatest achievement – creating the NHS in 1948.
The Greater Manchester mayor made the claim as he revealed he would run for the leadership again after the next election if he had enough support.
Mr Burnham, a former health secretary under Gordon Brown, came a distant second to hard Left icon Mr Corbyn (pictured yesterday at a pro-Palestinian demonstration) in the 2015 Labour leadership election, polling just 19 per cent of votes.
Mr Burnham said had he beaten Mr Corbyn to the leadership six years ago he would have been more successful in stopping the Conservatives from breaking the so-called ‘red wall’ – including the many northern heartland seats lost in the 2019 general election, and the crushing defeat endured in this month’s Hartlepool by-election.
‘I still think life would have been different if I had won,’ said Mr Burnham, who romped to victory in his mayoral election on May 6, taking all 215 wards in Greater Manchester.
‘I think we would be stronger in taking on the Government. I don’t think we’d have lost as many northern seats had I won.’
An Opinium poll published in the paper shows Mr Burnham – who also failed in a 2010 leadership bid – is widely seen as the most likely and able successor to current leader Sir Keir Starmer, with 47 per cent ranking him on top, ahead of 35 per cent for London mayor Sadiq Khan and 29 per cent for Leeds Central MP and former Labour frontbencher Hilary Benn.
Mr Burnham said he would not be challenging Sir Keir for the leadership before the next election or ‘any time soon’, but added: ‘If there comes a point where it is clear to me that the Labour Party, having not thought me right twice, suddenly thinks ‘well actually you probably are now, because of the way the world has changed’, then as I say, I will put myself forward to lead the Labour Party.’
Mr Burnham said he was frustrated Labour had not drafted a clear or sufficiently bold policy on social care, and said such a policy would have helped the party in the May 6 elections.
He said this had also convinced him Labour now lacked the ‘wherewithal’ it had had in the post-war years, when it created the NHS.
‘I ask myself, could the Labour Party that I’ve been associated with in the 20 years that I’ve been in elected politics… could it create the NHS?’ he said.
‘And ‘no’ is the only thing I could say, because it hasn’t seemingly got that wherewithal any more to take on a big injustice.’
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