𝓤𝓷𝓲𝓽𝓮𝓭 𝓝𝓮𝔀𝓼

Andy Burnham has just made one of the biggest decisions of his life and it could have huge implications not just for the future of the Labour party but for Britain itself. When a Labour insider in Westminster he twice ran for the leadership but never amassed a following of devotees. Nobody talked about Burnhamism.

But when he became Mayor of Greater Manchester he hit his stride, leading the city through the pandemic and becoming one of the greatest advocates of English devolution. He could drop into think tank sessions and talk with pride and enthusiasm for initiatives he had pushed forward, while also earning a reputation as an unpretentious family man rather than a political apparatchik.

He has cast himself as both a fount of ideas and as a conscience of the Labour movement. There is no doubt this is a very comfortable perch but he has resolved to jump into the unknown – and he could suffer an almighty crash.

Everything about this new chapter in his life is high risk.

For starters, (assuming Labour’s National Executive Committee give him the green light to stand) he may not win the supposedly safe seat of Gorton and Denton. Reform UK came second here in the 2024 election and it would be a sensational coup for Nigel Farage’s party if it took this heartland seat and felled one of the few Labour figures who is both popular and reasonably well-known nationwide. The Greens will have similar ambitions.

If Labour also lost the by-election for the mayoralty this would be a cataclysm for the party and Mr Burnham would be painted as a power-crazed and hubristic politico who unleashed a disaster because he could not contain his screaming ambition.

If he wins a seat in Westminster there is no expectation he will settle for a life on the backbenches, and it hard to imagine him being happy padding around Whitehall in a lower ministerial role. The near-universal assumption will be he wants to take a third tilt at the leadership – the only question is when.

Many Labour MPs will groan at the thought of the party dividing into factions ahead of the May elections, which are expected to feature various degrees of catastrophes. After more than a century of being the biggest party in Wales in every general election, Labour looks set to lose its grip on power in the Senedd.

The aftermath of such a drubbing would be the natural time for a party to ask if a new leader is needed, and whether he or she should be in place for the autumn conference.

Many MPs will balk at the notion of a coronation of Mr Burnham, a veteran of the Blair-Brown era. It is time for a new generation to take the helm, fans of Health Secretary Wes Streeting might argue; others would insist Labour must have its first female leader and point to Angela Rayner as a candidate with great support on the soft Left.

The gnawing fear among Labour MPs who cling to the hope they may somehow hold onto their seats in 2029 will be that an internal battle will remind voters of the Tories’ internecine warfare. If the two traditional parties of Government look as bad as each other this would only accelerate the rush of voters to Reform UK and the Greens.

Mr Burnham better have a policy platform that is credible and will not spook the markets.

When the Chancellor’s “headroom” is perennially on the risk of vanishing, centrist MPs will worry that his warm noises about greater public control of essential services will chip away at confidence. Every Labour MP can think of lovely things to spend taxpayers’ money on – but there is scant spare cash. Likewise, his enthusiasm for changing the voting system and reforming the way the Commons works wins big smiles from policy wonks, but these are hardly the top priorities of families who still feel trapped in their own cost of living crisis.

Public displays of ambition often go down badly in Westminster and – as Jeremy Corbyn experienced – having the support of the membership but not MPs is a dangerous existence. If he can get back into the Commons, he needs to win the confidence of his comrades on the green benches, but his rivals will already be canvassing support.

There is much that can go wrong but Mr Burnham has demonstrated he is not done with politics. He did not want to spend the rest of his life wondering: “What if…?”

Should he win election as an MP, there will be many times as he commutes between London and Westminster when he will wonder whether he made the right decision. Yet when the country has a flatlining economy and faces a host of international dangers, and when his own party has reached a crisis low in the polls, he wants to get back in the centre of the action. There is fire in his belly – and when Britain does not have a surplus of visionaries that is no bad thing.

Crucially, for the sake of every one of us, his ambition needs to extend beyond getting to Downing Street. If he gets there without a credible plan to put Britain on the right track there is the real risk he will make things worse for families across the UK and earn a wretched legacy.

These are thoughts that swirl when his head hits the pillow each night.

Mr Burnham has had the chance to change lives in Manchester and now he wants to impact us all. Late on a Saturday afternoon in January, he took one of the biggest gambles of his life and days of high drama are ahead.