The PM faces a direct challenge to his leadership. It could finish him off.
Keir Starmer faces a challenge from the North – it could sweep him away (Image: Getty)
It’s just one thing after another for Keir Starmer as the economy tanks, Labour high-ups resign in droves, and the public realises the PM couldn’t run a chip shop, let alone a whole country.
Voters can’t do much about it as the next election is years away. Yet Starmer faces a more immediate threat, from his own party. They’ve had enough too.
Many want him out, and now they’ve got a figurehead to rally around in Andy Burnham, the Labour Mayor of Manchester.
Burnham has been itching to have another crack at the leadership ever since losing out to Jeremy Corbyn in 2015.
Now he reckons the tide is turning in his favour as Starmer sinks. His biggest hurdle is that he isn’t an MP, but he’s manoeuvring to stay relevant by backing Lucy Powell in the deputy leadership contest triggered by Angela Rayner’s departure.
Burnham boasts one superpower. He’s from the North. He’s so proud of it, he never stops mentioning it.
In fact, he’s the UK’s most dedicated exponent of that ancient breed, the Professional Northerner. And in the crazy world of Labour Party internal politics, that could be enough.
There’s nothing wrong with coming from the North. Some of my best mates do. And some of my worst enemies. Which is another way of saying that where you come from shouldn’t matter, but it does in Labour circles.
It matters almost as much as race and class, those other badges of identity the left obsesses over. It’s the stamp of authenticity.
That’s why Burnham bangs on about being a Northerner at every possible opportunity, and several impossible ones too.
His campaign speeches are littered with tales of his working-class Liverpudlian grandmother and his days on the terraces at Anfield, accent getting thicker by the word.
He makes it sound as if living in the Wigan-side of Manchester gives him deeper insight into the state of the nation than any southerner could ever muster.
Even many in the Labour movement roll their eyes when he clicks into Professional Northerner mode. This includes some who are from the North themselves, but like to talk about something else, from time to time.
Other candidates for the deputy leadership are playing a similar game. Education secretary Bridget Phillipson is working her North-East working-class credentials for all they’re worth.
She doesn’t mention that she shot off the second she turned 18, thence to Oxford University and straight into the liberal establishment.
Angela Rayner did it better, of course. Her rise from care worker to the top of Labour’s ranks was so extraordinary it deserves respect. But that’s the exception.
Most of Labour’s high flyers are middle class lookalikes who ham up whatever street credentials they can muster.
Keir Starmer himself milked the fact that he was the son of a toolmaker. But he’s from the south, born in Southwark, which is no defence against Burnham’s Northern might.
Which makes this Starmer’s worst nightmare. Also, there are moments when Burnham can do human too. Which is a double nightmare for our wooden PM.
Despite their posturing, Labour abandoned actual working-class communities years ago, chasing fashionable middle-class causes instead.
Burnham’s outdated Northern shtick won’t win them back on its own. Nor will anyone else at Labour until they drop the cosplay and reconnect with real working people.
