Quit or face a coup in 72 hours: Ultimatum for Starmer after Burnham’s by-election landslide – as he plots Left-wing ‘path for Britain’

Keir Starmer has been given until Monday to quit with ‘dignity’ or face a full-blown coup following Andy Burnham’s by-election landslide.

Mr Burnham’s allies have delivered the ultimatum after he secured a majority of 9,000 votes over Reform in Makerfield – sparking tears of joy from Labour Left-wingers who want far more extreme tax and spend policies. 

As the PM hunkers in Downing Street, ministers are said to have been conveying the message that he should set out a departure timetable. There are threats of Cabinet resignations from the start of next week.  

Mr Burnham made his intentions clear at a rally in Ashton this morning, calling for ‘real change’, ‘re-industrialisation’ and an end to ‘trickle down economics’, adding: ‘It is our last chance to change but we are going to take it… we are going to lay out a new path for Britain.’ 

He made a hasty exit after delivering the stump speech, ignoring questions shouted by reporters. 

The scale of the victory heaped massive pressure on Sir Keir to allow a ‘coronation’ that could happen within days. Even previously loyal MPs are calling on him to make way for his rival.

But the premier showed no signs of budging as he toured a housing development this morning, saying he ‘will stand’ in any leadership contest and will not ‘walk away’. 

He revealed he has not yet spoken to Mr Burnham directly. Tensions have been so great that the pair have not been in touch since he was selected as the Makerfield candidate. 

‘If there is a contest, then yes, I will stand,’ Sir Keir said. ‘I have said repeatedly, I am not going to walk away from that.’

In a lunchtime call with Labour staffers, the premier appeared to claim credit for the by-election result, saying the ‘tide is turning’ on Reform in the national polls. ‘Let’s pull together as a party and a movement,’ he said. ‘The one thing we’ve got to avoid doing is plunging our party and our country into chaos by turning on each other and tearing apart our party and our movement. That has never worked. That’s what the last government did. We need to learn that lesson.’

However, ex-minister Baroness Harman – who was appointed as an adviser by Sir Keir just last month – has called for a ‘process’ where MPs are given the choice of who is going to be PM. She argued that a woman should also be on the ballot. 

Labour backbenchers who previously supported Sir Keir staying are now saying he needs to quit.

One told the Daily Mail: ‘Andy Burnham has exceeded all expectations and I’m absolutely sure that there’ll be an orderly transition of leadership now. Keir would be unwise to try and stop it.’ 

Nigel Farage admitted he was ‘disappointed’ by the result, acknowledging Reform had struggled to counter the message of ‘vote Burnham, get Starmer out’.

He blamed Restore splitting the Right for Reform getting 16,000 votes instead of the 18,000 he had expected. In a direct message to those who supported Rupert Lowe’s outfit, Mr Farage said: ‘What do you want? We are the challenger party to the Left in this country.’ 

On a potentially pivotal day for Britain’s future: 

• Interest rates on government debt ticked up slightly today, although similar moves have been seen in other European bond markets amid uncertainty over oil prices;  
• The danger of a lurch to the Left was underlined as official figures showed public sector borrowing surging to a record level for May, outside of the Covid peak. Interest rates on the country’s debt mountain and the Government’s spending splurge were behind the spike;
• JP Morgan has warned of a ‘high risk’ that Mr Burnham would opt to overhaul the Government’s fiscal rules, despite appearing to rule the idea out in recent weeks; 
• In a separate by-election contest in Aberdeen South, the Tories secured a huge win over the SNP after successfully turning the race into a referendum on oil and gas drilling in the North Sea;
• The SNP did hold Arbroath and Broughty Ferry in a third by-election result of the night;
• A by-election to replace Mr Burnham as Greater Manchester Mayor is due to be held on July 30, with Labour’s chances boosted by the Government changing the electoral system. 

 

Mr Burnham, known as Labour’s ‘King of the North’, stood on stage between Count Binface and Robert Pownall, a candidate dressed as a fox, as the by-election results were declared shortly after 3am.

He won 24,927 votes, which was more than half of the total. It gave him a majority of 9,231 votes over Reform candidate Robert Kenyon, with 15,696 votes.

In his victory speech, Mr Burnham – who has been out of the Commons for nine years – said: ‘Everyone can feel that the country isn’t where it should be. Tonight could, just could, be the turning point.

‘From here on I will give everything I have got to make it so. To ensure the name Makerfield is forever synonymous with bringing about the change this country needs.’

He added: ‘I do say to my own party: this is a final chance to change. This is what people said directly to me on the hundreds of doorsteps that I stood on.

‘We must hear it, we must act upon it and we must get it right. There will be no second chance.’

Holding a rally at the Ashton Town FC ground a few hours later Mr Burnham said: ‘We do need an end to trickle-down economics, which didn’t trickle down very much at all to places like this.

‘We want to see a new drive of reindustrialisation across the north of England, and indeed the rest of the country, and big change in Whitehall if that is to happen, and I’m talking about public procurement.

‘It’s about time we started backing British business and British industry, so that we can reindustrialise places like this, and, yes, let’s change the education system so that young people growing up here have clear paths into that new industry.

‘No more an education system dominated by the university route, but an education system that offers a path for everybody, academic and technical, in equal balance.

‘That’s what we need if we are to change this.’

He said public procurement should be used to ‘get more work placements for people, a guarantee of a work placement for every 16 to 18-year-old who wants one, the guarantee of an apprenticeship’.

Mr Burnham paid tribute to a ‘band of strong northern power women’ who spearheaded his campaign.

He singled out Labour MPs Louise Haigh – who previously quit Sir Keir’s Cabinet after failing to disclose a spent conviction from a decade ago – and Anneliese Midgley. 

Mr Burnham also thanked Josh Simons, the former Makerfield MP who stood down to pave the way for his return to the Commons.

Ms Haigh told reporters: ‘I hope the Prime Minister takes the weekend to really reflect on the result here – listen to soundings from the cabinet and the PLP, because all the evidence suggests that a contest will be brutal, it will be unpleasant and it will be very unlikely that the Prime Minister is going to win at the end of it.’

Asked if they had a ‘campaign ready to go’, she said: ‘Yes.’

Ms Haigh said: ‘We really hope that this can be a managed and orderly transition and Keir Starmer will reflect on the results, and Andy and Keir can meet in the coming days, and over the next week, and agree a path forward.’

She said ‘all the agency is in Keir Starmer’s hands’ and that she hoped he did that in ‘a dignified way’.

Turnout for the by-election was 58.71 per cent, which is higher than the 52.4 per cent at the 2024 general election and the highest for a parliamentary by-election in nearly seven years.

The contest saw weeks of frenetic campaigning, with an estimated 3,000 Labour activists packing the streets yesterday in an unprecedented drive to get voters to the polling stations.

Notably they included Ed Miliband – widely tipped to be Mr Burnham’s chancellor if he gets the keys to No10 – and Darren Jones, previously part of Sir Keir’s praetorian guard.    

The wave of Labour MPs hailing Mr Burnham’s victory leaves little doubt that he has the 81 nominations needed to trigger a leadership contest under the party’s rules.

He is expected to present the list to Sir Keir when he urges him to step down without a contest.

So far the incumbent premier has been noisily declaring his determination to fight rather than allow a ‘coronation’. 

Sir Keir is said to have amassed a war chest from a group of private donors, with fundraising having ramped up in the last two days and total pledges running into six figures.

He has also been insisting Mr Burnham should wait until after the by-election for his old mayoral job before launching any challenge.  

But the PM’s prospects of survival have been dealt a body blow by the thumping nature of Mr Burnham’s triumph. 

Former Cabinet minister Ms Haigh, the Labour MP for Sheffield Heeley who was in charge of the by-election campaign, demanded Sir Keir agree to an ‘orderly and managed’ transition of power.

She urged the PM to ‘take the time to reflect on these results, reflect on the results just six weeks ago [in the local elections] and do what’s best for both the country and the Labour Party’.

Lisa Nandy, the Culture Secretary and another Burnham ally, said it was ‘history in the making’ after he won the Makerfield by-election.

She said: ‘What Andy’s shown here is that there is something that he brings, a willingness to go out and fight for the change that people need, to take on any system and any person who stands in the way and to be bold and to wear his heart on his sleeve, and people have responded.

‘I think that with him back in the top team, at the top table, helping to drive that change, I think we’ll be in a really strong position.’

Labour grandee David Blunkett, the former home secretary, said Sir Keir and his wife Victoria should decide to leave Downing Street ‘with dignity’ if the desire for a change in leadership among MPs becomes ‘so obvious’.

York MP Rachael Maskell said Sir Keir should immediately make way for Mr Burnham, and dismissed potential rival Wes Streeting’s call for ‘progressive capitalism’.

‘I personally don’t believe that capitalism is progressive so I think the basis of his analysis is wrong,’ she told Times Radio.

‘But what we need to see, as Andy Burnham has been talking about, more national ownership of things like our water which has been devastating in the way that it’s been run over the last 30-plus years, in the way that water has been privatised and ultimately has had a real impact on the state of our rivers but also flooding and drought.’ 

Fellow Labour MP Jon Trickett said Sir Keir needed to bear in mind it would be ‘humiliating for a sitting prime minister to lose the vote of his own party’. 

The Unite union, which heavily funds Labour, said Sir Keir must do the ‘right thing’ and go.

General secretary Sharon Graham said: ‘The win for Andy Burnham in Makerfield is a glimmer of hope but it must not be taken as a business as usual mandate.

‘It is clear that there now needs to be an orderly timetable for a leadership election and Keir Starmer must do the right thing and step down. The inevitable leadership election must be fought on real change and policies. Not personalities or better speeches.’

One Labour aide goaded that Sir Keir should leave today, rather than waiting until next week. ‘Why wait until Monday, just for another weekend at Chequers?’ 

But Mike Tapp, a Home Office minister and Starmer loyalist, said it was ‘really important’ that Labour ‘stick with’ the PM to avert ‘chaos’ and ‘churn’ in Government.

‘You don’t change two years in, all that does is it says to the public that they can’t trust that party in Government,’ he told the BBC.

In a message to his fellow Labour MPs, Mr Tapp added: ‘If there’s a leadership contest and Keir Starmer is replaced then our opposition will have credible calls for a general election – just as we did when we called for a general election when the Tories changed their leader.

‘Do they want an early general election? That’s the question.’

Mr Tapp said any challengers to Sir Keir must set out ‘exactly what they would do’ if they were to become PM.

‘In my view, if that agenda that is laid out is too far from the manifesto, then it’s really difficult to not call a general election and we will see that pressure coming on,’ he continued.

Labour’s Left-wing immediately renewed demands for a shift to more radical policies, including wealth taxes and more spending.

Jeremy Corbyn’s former shadow chancellor John McDonnell was in tears on LBC as he listened to Mr Burnham’s victory speech. 

Mr McDonnell said a handover of No10 was ‘inevitable’. ‘I think the general view is that let’s try and find a way through this in which Keir can stand down with a bit of dignity and then as a result of that Andy takes over,’ he said. 

One despairing Labour moderate pointed to the hard-Left views of those close to Mr Burnham, saying his administration could be ‘such a sh**show’.

‘It’s crazier than people realise,’ the insider said. ‘These are people everyone wants us to handover the party to.’ 

Reform had mounted stiff opposition to Labour in Makerfield, with Nigel Farage’s party intent on winning the constituency for themselves to dash Mr Burnham’s long-held ambition of becoming PM.

Mr Farage and Reform’s candidate, self-employed plumber Mr Kenyon, spent the last month urging local voters to ‘vote Reform, stop Labour’ in their efforts to derail Mr Burnham’s bid for No10.

But Reform’s campaign was hampered by the decision of Restore Britain, the hard-Right party set up by ex-Reform MP Rupert Lowe, to also stand in the constituency.

Reform’s Nadine Dorries suggested her party’s supporters voted tactically to get Sir Keir out. ‘This is not bad news for Reform. It’s a good night for Reform too,’ she told Sky News. 

Polling expert Sir John Curtice said Mr Burnham’s Makerfield victory was not likely to lead to a nationwide surge in Labour’s popularity.

Speaking on the BBC, he said: ‘Can this be replicated elsewhere? First thing to note, between them the Conservatives, the Greens and the Liberal Democrats got no more than 3 per cent of the vote.

‘I think one has to say that there are two crucial elements to Mr Burnham’s success. The first is the apparent readiness of those who are minded to vote for parties other than Reform, or indeed Restore Britain, their readiness to fall in and vote for Mr Burnham.

‘The second element of Mr Burnham’s success is that in a sense he was riding two horses at once. He was both riding as the person who was trying to appeal to the traditional Labour vote … and he was also able to appeal to those who wanted to see the back of Keir Starmer.

‘The question you have to ask yourself is when Mr Burnham becomes prime minister, how easy will that trick be to repeat? Because once he’s his own man, he’s not going to be able to campaign against himself in the way he’s campaigned against Keir Starmer.

‘Bear in mind the fact that because he is so popular within Manchester, the extent to which his popularity can be extended across the whole of the country.

‘All of this is for Mr Burnham to prove – it looks as if he will get the opportunity to prove it but I don’t think we should assume that there is going to be suddenly a dramatic change in the standing of the Labour party in the national opinion polls.’

Responding to the by-election result, a Tory spokesman said: ‘Makerfield has long been considered a safe Labour seat. The fact that it was even at risk shows just how unpopular Labour has become.

‘But there is no disguising the fact that this is a disastrous result for Reform. Makerfield was one of their top target seats anywhere in the country, yet despite throwing everything at it, they have failed to win.

‘Andy Burnham’s victory will now trigger a Labour leadership contest, during which the Government will be consumed by Labour’s internal politics rather than governing.’

Sir Keir’s challengers want the embattled PM to set out a timetable for his departure from No10 himself, to avoid them having to trigger a bitter contest themselves.

Some are hoping that senior ministers will tell him at next Tuesday’s Cabinet meeting that his time is up as he has become the most unpopular PM in history.

But Sir Keir remains determined to fight on and could try to shut down any discussion of his future around the Cabinet table, as he did last month despite dozens of his MPs telling him to quit.

He and his team insist he alone has the mandate to lead the country, less than two years after he won a landslide general election, and see no reason why he should give it up.

Sir Keir will not travel to Makerfield on Friday, as is usual on the morning after a by-election victory.

Instead the PM will speak to broadcasters on a visit elsewhere and, although he is prepared to welcome Mr Burnham’s victory, he will say that a leadership contest would be a dangerous mistake.

However allies have been adamant that if any of his challengers – who also include former Health Secretary Wes Streeting – does decide to trigger one he will be a candidate.

One senior source told the Daily Mail: ‘He will be clear that a challenge would be wrong for the party and the country. But if there was one he is ready to fight it.

‘I don’t know why Andy Burnham thinks he’s got the right to a coronation just because he’s won a by-election.’

Another insider said: ‘He feels a sense of duty and is not going to walk away.’

The source said rival camps are desperate for Cabinet ministers to move first and tell Sir Keir he has to go, so that they are not seen as disloyal by starting the race.

They also questioned Mr Burnham’s sense of entitlement but predicted he and his team would soon realise the scale of the challenge facing him.

‘They’re on a high, thinking they’ve won a by-election and now they’re going to take No 10,’ they said.

‘But the reality of coming back to Westminster is going to hit them like a ton of bricks.’

The markets have been spooked by signs that Mr Burnham could take Labour to the Left with a major spending splurge funded by borrowing and even more tax.

He has hinted at wealth taxes, revaluing council tax and called for nationalisations.

But Mr Burnham has also executed screeching U-turns on a slew of ideas, including ruling out billions of pounds of compensation for so-called WASPI women just hours after supporting the prospect. 

The former Cabinet minister caused a furore at last year’s Labour conference in Liverpool after suggesting in an interview that politicians had to ‘get beyond this thing of being in hock to the bond markets’.

But he later seemed to row back from these comments, saying last month he supported Ms Reeves’s fiscal rules.

He told ITV: ‘There needs to be a plan to get debt down, but beyond that, we need to change politics and take the turbulence out of British politics, because that is a cause of uncertainty that then has that impact in the markets.’

Rachel Reeves, who is regarded as unlikely to be kept on as Chancellor if Mr Burnham becomes PM, delivered a shot across his bows yesterday, warning the fiscal rules must stay in place.

She told a conference: ‘We got elected on the promise to return stability to the economy, and anyone who wanted to deviate from that will not be fulfilling the manifesto commitments.’

Jockeying is already under way among senior Labour figures for a place in Mr Burnham’s top team if he does take over from Sir Keir.

Many Labour moderates are concerned at the potential for Ed Miliband to take over in No11.

Ms Haigh, who was forced to quit as Transport Secretary after it emerged she had a historic conviction for fraud, could be made Health Secretary.

Anneliese Midgley, who was once an adviser to Sir Keir, would be Chief Whip in Mr Burnham’s administration and his policing chief Kate Green has been tipped as his Chief of Staff.

Mr Streeting is reported to have met Mr Burnham while campaigning in Makerfield on Monday, though a source said ‘no deals were done’ as a result of the meeting. 

Even if Mr Burnham does become PM, many expect his honeymoon period to be even shorter than the one Sir Keir enjoyed.

He will face calls to hold a general election as he will not be seen as having a mandate, while he will lack the money or tax-raising powers to implement the Left-wing policies backbenchers want, such as nationalising utilities.

‘This PLP [Parliamentary Labour Party] is not scared of speaking out,’ a source said.

Despite Sir Keir’s insistence that he is not going anywhere, some still expect he will be forced to step down soon.

Resignations could take place in the coming days to pile further pressure on him, amid reports that ‘trigger happy’ ministers have been told to hold fire over the weekend.

Others want senior figures to use Tuesday’s Cabinet meeting to talk the PM into resigning.

One source said: ‘Over the weekend people who say privately Keir should go need to start saying that to him, or publicly.

‘The fact is that he doesn’t have the support of most of his Cabinet, his frontbench, the PLP or most of the country.

‘The best way forward is to set out a timetable for future-facing candidates to debate ideas, rather than a bitter contest where it’s a blame game for everything that’s happened for the past two years.

‘Keir will go either way but this way the agency is with him. Lots of people are hoping he will see sense.’

They added: ‘Keir banned discussion of his leadership at Cabinet last month. This time they’ve got to insist and make their views known.’

The Makerfield contest was triggered by the resignation of Josh Simons as the local MP, who said he wanted to give Mr Burnham a chance to return to Westminster to challenge Sir Keir because Labour was ‘imploding’.

Mr Simons gave up the constituency he won for Labour with a 5,000-vote majority at the 2024 general election in the wake of his party’s meltdown following disastrous results in elections in Scotland, Wales and English councils in May.

‘Labour needs to change and the whole Government needs to change,’ he said last month.

Mr Simons has been touted for a top role in Downing Street, should Mr Burnham be successful in his bid to take over from Sir Keir.