Keir Starmer says he wants to offer Burnham ‘big role’ in government to avoid leadership contest – UK politics live

Starmer says Labour should not hold leadership contest when it should be fighting Greater Manchester mayoral byelection Speaking to reporters at the G7 summit, Keir Starmer said it would be wrong for Labour to hold a leadership challenge ahead of a likely election to replace Andy Burnham as mayor of Greater Manchester . If Burnham wins the byelection tomorrow (as all the constituency polls suggest he will), he will resign his mayoral job and there will be an election to replace him. It would probably take place on Thursday 30 July. Bev Craig, the leader of Manchester city council, is tipped to be Labour’s candidate. Burnham won easily in the last mayoral election two years ago, but he is personally very popular in the north-west in a way that Craig isn’t. Reform UK trounced Labour in the local elections in May, and holding the mayoralty will be a tough challenge for the party. Asked about a potential leadership challenge, Starmer told reporters: double quotation mark First and foremost, I want Andy Burnham to win, and that’s why I’ve encouraged activists and members to go up there during the course of the campaign, and they’ll be up there tomorrow helping to get the vote out. Then what happens is we’re immediately tipped into a Manchester mayoral contest byelection, one of the biggest byelections that we’ve ever fought, because of the scale of it. …