𝓤𝓷𝓲𝓽𝓮𝓭 𝓝𝓮𝔀𝓼

Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood has said Andy Burnham could be blocked from returning as an MP if Labour’s governing committee decide to impose woke rules about their candidate selection. 

Appearing on Sky News this morning, Ms Mahmood said that while Mr Burnham could be given permission to apply for the candidacy of the forthcoming by-election, the NEC may then decide to impose an all-woman shortlist.

This move would be a huge humiliation for Mr Burnham, who would then be barred from becoming Labour’s candidate.

Ms Mahmood, who chairs the Labour Party’s National Executive Committee, told Trevor Phillips: “I think Andy’s a fantastic mayor for Greater Manchester, and I really appreciated the letter he wrote to myself and the NEC yesterday, I thought he made his case in a very fair-minded and decent way.”

“The party sometimes has all-women shortlists – of course you can’t by law have all-ethnic minority shortlists, so there’s a legal position there – that’s not a decision for today.

“Later today we will be deciding one question, which is Andy Burnham as a metro mayor at the moment has sought permission to stand in the by-election. Under our Labour Party rules, anybody who is a mayor or a Police and Crime Commissioner if they want to run for a different political office such as Member of Parliament they do have to seek permission from the NEC, that’s what’s going to happen later on today.

“Then there will be a shortlisting panel of members of the NEC alongside local and regional party representatives, who will then convene to do a longlist and then a shortlist for selection.”

Mr Phillips pointed out that this sequencing of the process means the NEC could say to Mr Burnham ‘yes, you have permission to run’, but the NEC could then decide to make it an all-female shortlist.

Ms Mahmood confirmed that a discussion about whether to bar men from standing in the process will be taken “at a later point”.

Taking to X yesterday, Mr Burnham confirmed his intention to apply for the by-election candidacy with just hours to spare before the hastily-imposed deadline.

Writing to Labour’s NEC, Mr Burnham tried to quash speculation his presence in Parliament could undermine Sir Keir Starmer’s leadership – given the mayor is believed to have ambitions to become leader himself – with a three-word message. The move, he said, is meant to back the Government – “not undermine it”.

He also said the decision to seek a return to the Commons had been “difficult”, but now was “the moment to mount the strongest possible defence of what we stand for”.

In a letter to the NEC asking for permission to stand, Mr Burnham said he had “given careful thought to what is in the best interests of our party and the city region I represent” following the announcement of a by-election “nobody wanted or expected”.

He argued there was now “a direct threat to everything Greater Manchester has always been about from a brand of politics which seeks to pit people against each other”.