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timeHe decides to ban Greater Manchester mayor and former councilor Andy Burnham Running for the currently vacant council seats in Gorton and Denton raises a host of questions, Sir Keir Starmer Himself as party leader and prime minister, and regarding the governance of the government Labor Party.
In his 18 months as prime minister, Sir Keir often appeared weak and indecisive, making U-turns and buck-passing on policy under pressure and pursuing goals more firmly than those set out in the manifesto that led Labor to a landslide election victory.
However, there is another side to this picture. He showed an almost ruthless determination when it came to party and government discipline and – one might add – his own survival as a leader. This is fully reflected in the way he ejects Jeremy Corbyn from the party and he tries to do the same thing Diane Abbott. He neither hesitated nor repented remove whip Coming from an MP who opposed the government’s welfare reform proposals (and later backed down on policy issues), he showed similar determination in effectively sacking two deputies, Angela Reinerand his hand-picked ambassador to Washington, Peter Mandelsonwhen their mistakes threatened his own position.
Sir Keir’s role as a member of the National Electoral Commission’s standing committee in the decision to block Mr Burnham’s possible return to the House of Commons in the first instance demonstrates his steadfastness and equal importance to the job of the Prime Minister. While there is some truth to the National Electoral Commission’s reasons for opposing his candidacy – a desire to bring Greater Manchester under the control of Mr Burnham and Labour before the next mayoral election – it is hard not to see a more immediate consideration: Sir Keir fears a leadership challenge, while his supporters want to keep potential new sources of instability out of the top ranks of government.
The decision is not without risks. A number of influential Labor voices, including deputy leader Lucy Powell, opposed the decision to withdraw Mr Burnham from the by-election, Angela ReinerNow a backbencher, supporting the possibility of his return to the House of Commons. Neither can be accurately described as shrinking violets, and it’s unlikely they’ll remain silent. Sir Keir could therefore have created a new cudgel for himself, in the form of intra-party resentment, and provided new impetus for others with leadership ambitions, such as the health minister, Wes Streeting.
For Mr Burnham and his supporters – and perhaps not just themselves – the decision has to raise questions about party process. Mr Burnham had just over a day to decide whether to put forward his name. The decision to block him was taken by an 11-member group of the National Executive Committee, which has strong support for the Starmer faction. Why should a panel of the National Electoral Commission be empowered to make such a decision, and why can potential parliamentary candidates be blocked by any mechanism other than the party in the relevant constituency?
Of course, Andy Burnham may have broken free of his own shackles and made the wrong decision to try to return to the House of Commons at this point. The mood of the country is such that he could be defeated at the ballot box and another Labor candidate could lose his seat. But Mr Burnham may well offer Labour’s best prospects of victory, and a more powerful leader than Sir Keir may choose to test Mr Burnham’s prior commitment to loyalty while exploiting his undoubted advantage. Rejecting Mr Burnham’s return at this stage might appear more like weakness than strength – and it’s a charge Sir Keir will have to contend with in the coming days and weeks.
The decision comes at the end of Sir Keir’s most telling week in charge of the top ten. He wisely stayed away from the diplomatic circus davos. He has taken a strong public stance on Greenland’s status as part of the Kingdom of Denmark, refuting the US president’s claims and Strongly opposed Donald Trump’s denigration of the contribution of non-US troops to the conflict in Afghanistan has prompted an apology from the second-term US president in the form of a tribute to the courage and sacrifice of non-US troops. british army.
For Sir Keir, these undoubted positives may now be offset by the backlash he is starting to face for blocking a popular politician from returning to the House of Commons. They also re-emphasized the contrast between Sir Keir’s strengths in talking to foreign leaders, controlling MPs and protecting himself, and his apparent weakness in communicating his campaign policies and successfully steering them through parliament. One way he might be able to silence, if not actually silence, his critics is by setting out to correct this disparity in the coming months.