MANCHESTER Mayor Andy Burnham is not looking to challenge Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer for the leadership of the Labour Party, according to Policing Minister Sarah Jones.
She told the Camilla Tominey Show on GB News: “I would say, read his statement and the letter that he sent to Shabana Mahmood as the chair of the NEC. He made clear that he supports what the government is doing.
“He’s also said previously, the best person to be Prime Minister is Keir Starmer. He said he wants to take what he’s learned from Manchester and the obvious success he’s had in a number of areas, in terms of how he’s delivered for the people of Greater Manchester, and he wants to bring that back to Parliament.
“I think the fight that we need to have as the Labour Party, as the Labour government, is with Reform, a bunch of busted flushes from the Tory Party, it’s with the Green Party who just say one thing on social media, but don’t stand up for people when it comes to voting for renters rights or planning reform.
“That’s the fight we need to have. We need to have our very best person who’s going to fight that by-election, we need to put ourselves in the very best position, not for me to have a view as to who the NEC decides can go forward in terms of the rules that we have.”
She added: “Look, we know the Prime Minister is completely focused on tackling the cost of living, representing us and the United Kingdom on the international stage, and he’s doing really well with both of those things. That is what he’s focused on.
“We need to make sure we have the right people to fight all of the elections across the country so that we can carry on doing the right thing.
“There’s a rule which says that if you are a sitting mayor and you want to stand in a by-election, you have to go through the NEC. The NEC are meeting later today. We won’t have long to find out what happens.
“People have different views about whether it’s right to take a sitting mayor to a by-election, because then you have to have a mayoral election. That will be played out in the NEC and they will make a decision. Whatever happens, I’m sure we’ll get the best person.”
Asked if there would need to be a General Election if there is a change of leadership, she said: “I completely reject your framing of this. The Prime Minister is not going anywhere. He is the Prime Minister, he got a big majority in Parliament.
“We need to focus on tackling the cost of living. We need to focus on making sure we’re growing the economy. And look, I know that this is interesting for journalists in Westminster. I would say most people across the country would care more about how are you going to make sure the government that we are responding in the right way to crime, the police are going to turn up.”