Labour leader and British prime minister Andy Burnham showed he could beat Nigel Farage’s populist right-wing party Reform UK in the Makerfield byelection in June.
Next month brings an opportunity to show that, to Labour’s left, Burnham also has the measure of the Green Party, which has put up high-profile leader Zack Polanski to contest the Holborn and St Pancras byelection in London on October 8th.
After that, some in Westminster speculate, Burnham could call a snap general election to win his own mandate and free himself from the shackles of the fiscally restrained manifesto written for Keir Starmer’s landslide election win in 2024.
With a working parliamentary majority of almost 170 seats and three years before an election must be called, could Britain’s seventh prime minister in a decade really be contemplating going to the polls just months after entering Downing Street?
READ MORE
When asked, Burnham has repeatedly ruled out calling an early election. “I don’t think people want it,” he said earlier this summer. Yet the rumour mill won’t let up in Westminster nor even among some senior figures in the wider Labour movement.
Last week, a top British trade unionist, the TUC leader Paul Nowak, suggested Burnham might be tempted to seek a fresh mandate from the British people soon after he publishes a 10-year plan for public services promised for November.
This week, Burnham’s government appointed Nowak a director of the Bank of England.
Others, such as JL Partners pollster James Johnson, believe Burnham should move soon to take advantage of a splintering of support among rival parties on the right, while banking on the left to unite behind Labour to keep Farage out of Downing Street.
The logic of those who speculate about an early election is straightforward: Labour’s rivals are weak while its standing has improved. They highlight that Labour has recovered somewhat in polls under the relatively popular Burnham’s leadership and would likely re-emerge in pole position to lead the formation of a new UK government.
They also highlight opinion polls showing that Reform, beset by financial scandals, is at its weakest in more than a year. With fiscal conundrums mounting and Burnham desperate for cash to fund public services and a defence rebuild, he could use an election to argue for the tax increases that the 2024 manifesto ruled out.
Despite Burnham’s denials that he is contemplating an early election, Downing Street figures are known to be quietly canvassing opinions among senior figures in the party.
“They would be utterly stupid not to look at it,” said one party source, who nevertheless believes Burnham should hold off for now, having only just attained power.
It is understood that a concern shared by senior figures in Burnham’s administration is that any suggestion he was seriously considering an early election would be seized upon by rival parties who would portray it as the precursor to a Labour tax grab.
“The government might ultimately decide that raising taxes to pay for defence is what they have to do,” said the Labour source.
“But that doesn’t mean that they have to go now. What does ‘early’ actually mean? This year? No chance. But maybe they could go after four years instead of five, and we’re already more than halfway to that point.”
A senior Labour source conceded, however, that £72 million of donations recently received by Reform to buttress that party’s election war chest might also be a factor in election timing: “Burnham might want to go for an election before Reform has had a chance to spend it. This is a very dynamic situation.”
Others have highlighted that the “Burnham bounce” for Labour in opinion polls after it selected its new leader is already petering out and was never much to start with. YouGov has Labour and Reform tied on 23 per cent, while an Opinium poll last Saturday had Labour just two points ahead on 27 per cent. It won in 2024 with 33.7 per cent.
Polling guru John Curtice of Strathclyde University has warned that a misjudged early election call by Burnham risked Reform emerging as the largest party.
“The numbers are not there [to justify it] and you’re going to risk an awful lot of your MPs,” he said.
Another seasoned observer of the Westminster scene said Labour’s “best-case scenario” would be to lose about 100 MPs if Burnham called an election over the next six of seven months.
“That’s 100 MPs whose careers are ended prematurely, and for some only two or three years after they entered parliament. That wouldn’t do anything for Burnham’s standing in the party. He has a huge majority and a guaranteed three years. Why risk it when polls pretty much guarantee a hung parliament?”
Several Labour sources said the spectre of former prime minister Gordon Brown, who bottled the calling of a winnable early election when he took over from Tony Blair in 2007, is what hangs over Burnham now.
“But look what happened to Theresa May in 2017 when she called an election that everyone thought she was bound to win,” said another source. May lost a Tory majority.
“Burnham and Labour need to be early-to-mid-30s in percentage terms, with Reform and the Tories eight or nine behind. Perhaps then would it look attractive.”
[ Mark Paul: Real work begins for BurnhamOpens in new window ]
