{"id":45377,"date":"2026-01-24T18:05:08","date_gmt":"2026-01-24T18:05:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/andy-burnham-seeks-permission-to-stand-in-by-election\/"},"modified":"2026-01-24T18:05:08","modified_gmt":"2026-01-24T18:05:08","slug":"andy-burnham-seeks-permission-to-stand-in-by-election","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/andy-burnham-seeks-permission-to-stand-in-by-election\/","title":{"rendered":"Andy Burnham seeks permission to stand in by-election"},"content":{"rendered":"


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Andy Burnham has announced that he is seeking permission to stand in the upcoming Gorton and Denton parliamentary by-election.<\/p>\n

If he won and became an MP, Burnham could mount a leadership challenge against Sir Keir Starmer but the BBC has been told that allies of the prime minister may try and block him from standing in the constituency. <\/p>\n

Burnham is currently mayor of Greater Manchester and in a statement insisted that he wants to back the Labour government “not undermine it”, adding that the decision to announce his intentions had been “difficult”.<\/p>\n

The seat in Greater Manchester is vacant after Andrew Gwynne stood down on Friday as an MP on health grounds.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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As a directly-elected mayor, Burnham has to get approval from Labour’s ruling national executive committee before he can enter the race to be the party’s candidate.<\/p>\n

Several Labour MPs have reacted angrily to the suggestion that he could be blocked from standing.<\/p>\n

Some senior figures in the party have also said they believe Burnham should be allowed to stand.<\/p>\n

London Mayor Sir Sadiq Khan said: “If Andy Burnham wants to be a member of Parliament, Andy Burnham should be allowed to be a member of Parliament”.<\/p>\n

Energy Secretary Ed Miliband said Burnham would be a massive asset” in Parliament and that he hoped Gorton and Denton party members would have “the option” of selecting him as a candidate.<\/p>\n

In his letter to the NEC, which he shared on social media,<\/a> Burnham said there was a “direct threat to everything Greater Manchester has always been about from a brand of politics which seeks to pit people against each other”.<\/p>\n

“I see this by-election as the frontline of that fight for the Manchester Way and I feel I owe it to a city which has given me so much to lead it from the front, despite the risks involved.”<\/p>\n

He said he had left Westminster nearly a decade ago because he believed “it wasn’t working for people in our part of the world” and that as mayor he had “tried to pioneer a different way of doing things”.<\/p>\n

However, he added that he believed Manchester “won’t be able to be everything it should be without similar changes at a national level.<\/p>\n

“This is why I feel the need to go back.”<\/p>\n

There has been speculation that the prime minister could face a leadership challenge, after the May elections, which will see votes take place in the Welsh Parliament, the Scottish Parliament and in some local councils in England.<\/p>\n

Burnham has been touted as a possible leadership contender but can only mount a bid if he is an MP in the Commons.<\/p>\n

In his letter to the NEC, Burnham insisted he would be in Parliament “to support the work of the government, not undermine it”.<\/p>\n

“I have passed this assurance on to the prime minister.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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If he were to be selected and won the Gorton and Denton seat, Burnham would have to resign as Greater Manchester mayor, triggering a new election for that role.<\/p>\n

Several Labour sources have said the NEC could block Burnham’s application on the grounds that a mayoral election would be expensive for the party. <\/p>\n

It would also be costly for the taxpayer with the last mayoral election costing around \u00a34.7m. <\/p>\n

The NEC is expected to inform Burnham of their decision on Sunday. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n


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Andy Burnham has announced that he is seeking permission to stand in the upcoming Gorton and Denton parliamentary by-election. If he won and became an MP, Burnham could mount a leadership challenge against Sir Keir Starmer but the BBC has been told that allies of the prime minister may try and block him from standing […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":45378,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[51],"tags":[472,473,2498,5617,393,1237],"class_list":["post-45377","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics","tag-andy","tag-burnham","tag-byelection","tag-permission","tag-seeks","tag-stand"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45377","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45377"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45377\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":45379,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45377\/revisions\/45379"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/45378"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45377"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45377"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45377"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}