Burnham bottles it: PM rules out snap election after poll shows he'd lose his majority
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By JASON GROVES, POLITICAL EDITOR and DAVID WILCOCK, DEPUTY POLITICAL EDITOR and CLAIRE ELLICOTT WHITEHALL EDITOR
Published: | Updated:
Andy Burnham has been accused of ‘bottling’ plans for an early election after polls showed he would lose Labour’s majority.
The Prime Minister moved to kill off speculation about a snap poll to prevent it overshadowing Labour’s annual conference, which begins in Liverpool on Sunday.
Aides had flirted with the idea of an early election to secure a mandate for Mr Burnham, who entered Downing Street in a Labour ‘coronation’ after orchestrating a coup against Keir Starmer.
But polls conducted in recent days suggested going to the country now would see Labour lose its majority. Ed Miliband, Yvette Cooper and John Healey were among Cabinet ministers predicted to lose their seats to Reform.
In a series of interviews on Friday night, Mr Burnham tried to kill off the idea of an early vote.
The PM initially left the door open to a snap election, saying only that he was ‘not particularly’ tempted by the idea. But his line hardened as the interviews continued.
He told ITV that 2029 was ‘when the next election will be’ and suggested that going to the polls early would be seen as ‘self-serving’.
He added: ‘All of this speculation on an early election? I can knock that dead.
‘You know people want me, new in office, to be getting on with the job of delivering on the things that we’ve discussed in this interview rather than putting self-serving politics before that.’
Andy Burnham moved to kill off speculation about a snap poll to prevent it overshadowing Labour’s annual conference, which begins in Liverpool on Sunday
On Friday night the move was likened to Gordon Brown’s decision to kill off the idea of a snap election in 2007 after the polls moved against Labour. He was branded ‘Bottler Brown’ and his credibility was permanently damaged.
Kemi Badenoch said Mr Burnham was ‘a gambler who folded’. The Conservative leader added: ‘Andy Burnham is a gambler. For weeks there has been speculation about an early election and even yesterday he was avoiding ruling it out.
'Now he has decided his cards aren’t good enough, so he’s folded.
‘The country needs a serious party that actually has a plan – not just vibes.’
Reform leader Nigel Farage said: ‘It’s obvious Bottler Burnham doesn’t want this overshadowing his conference like Gordon Brown but Reform is ready for an election whenever it is called.’
Mr Burnham has been dubbed the ‘messiah without a mandate’ following his coronation in July.
The 25,000 Labour voters who backed him in the Makerfield by-election amount to just 0.05 per cent of the electorate.
Allies believe he needs his own mandate to deliver radical reforms that go beyond Labour’s manifesto.
Mr Burnham has generated only a ‘modest’ bounce in the polls, leaving Labour certain to lose dozens of seats. One Cabinet minister said the idea of an early election was ‘insane’.
A series of ‘mega polls’ this week all showed that Labour would lose its majority in an early election.
A poll by YouGov forecast that Labour would emerge as the biggest party with 241 seats in a snap election, with the Conservatives on 130 seats and Reform pushed into third with 123. The Lib Dems would remain almost unchanged on 71, while the Greens would win just nine.
That would leave Mr Burnham trying to put together a ‘rainbow coalition’ involving Labour, the Lib Dems, Greens and nationalists.
Instead of using this week’s party conference as a launchpad for a possible election campaign, Mr Burnham will try to flesh out his vague plans for the country.
On Friday night he said this would include a push to take the privatised water industry into public control.
He will ‘set out more thinking about the change that we need to see in the running of water across the country’, telling BBC South that the current situation was ‘nowhere near good enough’.
Challenged over the fact that performance at Southwestern Rail has worsened since it was taken under public control a year ago, the PM said: ‘It will get better... I would be the first to acknowledge that the railways aren’t there yet and we need to get our hands on it, a grip on it. And change the way the railways are working.’
Mr Burnham told BBC North West he would also be ‘laying out plans to reduce the cost of living further over a longer period of time’.
Asked about Labour’s decision to hike employers’ National Insurance, he said: ‘It is definitely something that has caused pressure on employers. No question.’
But he declined to say he would reverse it, adding only: ‘The country is in a challenging position when it comes to finance. What we’ve got to do is get growth going.’
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