"The Greens should step aside so Burnham can win" is not exactly an inspiring message

Andy Burnham is officially standing for Labour in the Makerfield by-election and the stakes could not be higher. If he wins this once-safe seat, he will step down as Mayor of Greater Manchester, return to Parliament, and almost certainly become the next Labour leader — and therefore our next Prime Minister. If he loses, it could be the final nail in the coffin for a party in freefall.

Labour took nearly 60% of the vote in Makerfield under Corbyn’s leadership in 2019. Thanks to Starmer, the seat is now on a knife edge with Reform closing the gap and a Green surge entirely possible. Burnham is being pitched as Labour’s last hope, but if the “King of the North” can’t persuade the public to vote Labour, who in this talent-free party can? Not Palantir boy Wes Streeting, that’s for sure.

Due to these concerns, we are seeing demands for the Greens to step aside so Burnham can be crowned, but this is not a coronation. Last time I checked, this was supposed to be a democracy. Demanding your rivals let you win is not an inspiring message — it is entitlement.

We are told that Burnham is highly popular, but not popular enough to win a fair election where the public has meaningful choice? The Greens would gain nothing from stepping aside for Burnham, and Labour would not step aside for Zack Polanski.

The Greens are the second most popular party in the country according to recent polls and they want to keep that momentum going. Hannah Spencer showed the Greens can win by-elections when she overturned a huge Labour majority in Gorton and Denton, becoming her party’s first MP in northern England. With the right candidate, the Greens could appeal to the left-leaning Makerfield constituency. There is everything to fight for.

Labour has had chance after chance and now the public’s trust is gone because the problems are not down to one man, they’re down to the party being captured by the establishment and run according to corporate interests, rather than the public good.

One major problem is that Burnham would become prime minister without a public mandate. He has not won a Labour leadership contest (he got soundly defeated by Miliband in 2010 and Corbyn in 2015) and he has not won a general election. His path to power relies on Josh Simons stepping aside in Makerfield and looks like classic insider politics. Burnham’s supporters want him to become prime minister by default.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think Burnham is all bad — he did some decent things as Mayor of Greater Manchester with investment in small towns and improvements to public transport. He is certainly less awful than Starmer, but I suspect he is playing the same game — signalling leftward so he can get into office and then return to business as usual.

The fear is not exactly unfounded. Burnham has a track record of Blairite neoliberalism and has made some awful mistakes over the years, such as backing the Iraq war in 2003. As health secretary, he pushed NHS marketisation and PFI contracts so we can be forgiven for scepticism when he criticises privatisation.

Jody McIntyre wrote a Canary article Andy Burnham is not the answer that details Burnham’s past associations, and they don’t exactly inspire confidence. We’re talking about a man who is deeply embedded with New Labour and the Israel lobby. His principal adviser when he served in the Labour government was Jennifer Gerber who later served as director of Labour Friends of Israel for a decade. Burnham was a supporter of Labour Friends of Israel and said in the 2015 leadership contest that his first foreign trip as Labour leader would be to Israel.

On the plus side, Burnham says the UK should recognise Palestinian statehood, but he seems reluctant to make his position on Israel clear. Will he continue to illegally supply arms? Will he continue with the proscription of groups like Palestine Action? Will he continue to clamp down on our basic freedoms to protect Israel? These are important questions that we’re not getting answers to.

Ask yourself why an MP like Josh Simons would step aside in Makerfield for Burnham? Simons was the man behind Labour Together who was instrumental in the rise of Starmer. Labour Together got in trouble over undeclared donors and hired private investigators to target the journalists who exposed this. Are we expected to believe that Simons is suddenly a changed man? If he is giving up his seat, he is confident Burnham will be the continuity guy.

If Burnham acted like the socialist he claims to be, the Parliamentary Labour Party would mount a coup, just like they did against Jeremy Corbyn. It wouldn’t matter if the public were massively behind him, the corporate machine would rather burn the party to the ground than let it return to socialism. They would rather have a Reform government.

While Burnham was certainly more impressive as mayor than he was in ministerial roles, he is now vague on his intentions. He calls for more council housing, but I’ve seen many leaders do that and fail to deliver. He says privatisation was a terrible idea, but he won’t do renationalisation. Instead, he will give the public “more control”. This is almost identical messaging to Starmer. It seems the only difference now is the neoliberal product has a better salesman.

Burnham did some nice things in Manchester like the Bee Network, but do you think he would be allowed to make significant changes nationwide? Labour’s corporate donors have a veto because the party is on the brink of bankruptcy. If they abandon Labour, it will die because Starmer drove out the membership, costing millions a year.

Burnham comes across as likeable, and even sincere, but having charisma is not the same as offering representation. He talks of “business-friendly socialism”, but when politicians use such language, they mean they will pander to corporations. It’s the “I’m on the side of business and the people” line that establishment politicians love to use. I don’t want another establishment guy, I want structural change and only the Greens can offer that.

If the Greens were to step aside for Labour, they would be signalling to the public that you don’t have to vote for us any more, that it’s safe to vote Labour again. Such a move would kill the Greens’ momentum and the party would return to the irrelevance of the Caroline Lucas days. The status quo would be safe for another generation.

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