The Phoney War is no more. Former Labour minister Andrew Gwynne is on the brink of standing down as an MP, after losing the whip during last year’s WhatsApp group scandal. A by-election is therefore on the cards in Gwynne’s Manchester seat, potentially paving the way for the ever-ambitious local mayor Andy Burnham to return to the Commons and make a leadership challenge against Keir Starmer. Let’s hope the Westminster Tescos gets the extra popcorn in…
Gwynne has been hanging around SW1 for almost a year, waiting to reach agreement on his gold-plated MPs’ pension. A deal is understood to have been done, paving the way for him to disappear into taxpayer-funded obscurity. In his place could come Burnham – if he is able to get past the Labour NEC first. The group of apparatchiks have blocked many of Keir Starmer’s enemies over the years, with loyalists keen to stress that Burnham would suffer the same fate. It’s the age-old Stalin question: just how many divisions does Morgan McSweeney have?
The Gorton and Denton seat currently held by Gwynne is a long-held Labour safe seat. The party won it in 2024 with 50 per cent of the vote and 18,000 ballots – well ahead of Reform who finished a distant second on 5,000. But as Runcorn showed, even the safest of seats can go turquoise these days. One thing is for sure: Andy Burnham has a helluva choice on his hands…
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