Andy Burnham is a lifelong Westminster insider regardless of how he pitches himself - Andrew Vine
It is the oddest of propositions being put to the voters of Makerfield in two days’ time – and one which is going to throw the government into chaos, irrespective of who wins the by-election.
They are not so much being asked to elect an MP whose principal job is to represent the seat than invited to further the personal ambitions of the front-runner to win, Labour’s Andy Burnham, whose pitch to the electorate is frankly bizarre.
He’s implying his party’s record in government is awful, but they should vote for it anyway so he is able to turn it on its head by attempting to oust the Prime Minister the country elected, and if all goes to plan move into 10 Downing Street without suffering the inconvenience of having to win a general election. Job done.
Of course, Mr Burnham has avoided saying any of this directly. Over the past weeks of the campaign, he’s danced around the issue of presenting himself as saviour of both his party and the country, but that hasn’t fooled anybody.
It will be interesting to see if the good people of Makerfield go along with his grand plan on Thursday, having seen a perfectly competent MP who they voted in less than two years ago resign to allow Mr Burnham to chase his dream.
There is no precedent in modern politics for this sort of naked careerism being the reason for a completely unnecessary by-election, which will have cost at least a million pounds in public funds.
And if this ego-driven exercise goes the way of the would-be Premier, even more will be spent on holding an election to replace Mr Burnham as Greater Manchester’s mayor, while the new leader of the country lectures the nation about the difficult financial decisions ahead.
And if it doesn’t go his way, what happens then? Does another MP somewhere in or around Manchester step aside so that the whole circus starts again and Mr Burnham can have another crack at becoming PM?
It’s perfectly possible that the people of Makerfield upset Mr Burnham’s carefully-laid plans because they resent being little more than a means to a personal end.
Voters in the north are admirably awkward like that, independent of spirit and unwilling to be either pushed around or taken for granted.
We’ve seen it before, in the loss of Labour’s traditional red wall seats in Yorkshire in 2019 and the win for Reform UK in the Gorton and Denton by-election earlier this year, another seat that Mr Burnham was passionate about representing in Parliament until he was blocked from standing by Labour’s hierarchy who saw his wider ambitions all too clearly.
The voters may agree with Mr Burnham’s unspoken message – that Labour hasn’t been a success in government – and demonstrate that by electing somebody else, just as they did in last month’s local elections.
They may also be unconvinced that Mr Burnham can do much about the country’s problems, any more than another career politician.
For all his undoubted success and popularity as a metro mayor, Mr Burnham has twice stood unsuccessfully for the Labour leadership, failing to attract enough support from party members.
Far from being an outsider who will bring an often-emphasised fresh and northern perspective to government, Mr Burnham is a lifelong Westminster insider, going from an MP’s researcher to a cabinet minister under Tony Blair and Gordon Brown. He is part of the Labour establishment that has failed to deliver over the past two years of government.
Whether he wins or not, Thursday is going to paralyse the government still further, which will leave the country in limbo with nothing of substance being achieved amid weeks of Labour psychodrama and infighting.
If Mr Burnham is unable to mount a challenge to Sir Keir Starmer, then the former Health Secretary, Wes Streeting, has already said he will. Others may join the contest, possibly the former Deputy Prime Minister, Angela Rayner, and maybe even the Environment Secretary, Ed Miliband.
Yet the man in their sights has already insisted he isn’t going anywhere, and intends to serve a full term, however unlikely that seems.
The result is a government adrift and directionless, behaving exactly as its doomed Conservative predecessor did, already convinced salvation lies with a new leader and becoming more preoccupied with its own internal squabbles than running the country.
A long summer and autumn of bitter infighting lie ahead, and at the end of it the same problems that haven’t been tackled in the past two years, including dreadful public finances and a flatlining economy, will still await action, blocked by Labour backbenchers who refuse to countenance any decisive measures to address them.