Bev Craig to stand as Labour candidate for Greater Manchester mayor

Labour’s candidate to replace Andy Burnham as Greater Manchester mayor has been named as Bev Craig, the leader of the city council. Burnham, who could be prime minister in under four weeks, is expected to campaign heavily for Labour in a tight contest with Reform UK on 30 July. As many as 2 million people will be eligible to vote in the Greater Manchester byelection, making it the biggest in modern times in British politics. Craig, 41, has long been seen as a rising star within Labour and took over Manchester city council in 2021 at the age of 36, becoming only the third holder of the office in four decades and its first woman. Like many council leaders, however, she remains little-known to ordinary voters. A huge publicity blitz will pitch her as continuing the work of Burnham, who won the 2024 contest with nearly two-thirds of the vote and a 351,000-vote majority. However, Labour figures are braced for a bitter dogfight with Reform UK after losing more than 100 seats across Greater Manchester in May’s elections. Reform UK won 106 seats in the area’s 10 local authorities, including 18 out of 19 contested in Tameside, 24 out of 25 in Wigan and seven on Manchester city council. Nigel Farage’s party has not yet named its candidate but the frontrunner is Dan Barker, a nuclear industry project manager who came fourth with 7.5% of the vote in the 2024 mayoral election. …