Euan McColm: Why plot to install Andy Burnham as Prime Minister is a huge risk for Labour

So convinced are they that the Manchester Mayor is the answer to their woes that a plan has been formulated to bring him back to Westminster, where he served as the member for Leigh from 2001-17.

In a willing act of public debasement bordering on kink, the MP for Makersfield, Josh Simons has resigned his seat, forcing an entirely unnecessary by-election, which he – and many others in his party – believe Burnham can win, after which he will challenge Starmer for the crown and everything will be absolutely dandy.

Perhaps those now agitating for a Burnham premiership are correct. Maybe, across the UK, the people who abandoned Labour in elections 10 days ago will rush back if he replaces Starmer.

I’m not so sure this is correct. The plan to install Andy Burnham is, I think, a cunning one of Baldrickian proportions that risks further, and catastrophically, weakening the party’s relationship with voters.

Labour MPs currently rhapsodising about a Burnham premiership should, if their hysteria subsides for even a moment, think calmly about what they’re actually proposing.

Andy Burnham may be a successful Mayor of Manchester and he may, currently, enjoy decent popularity ratings but we have seen him on the frontline of Westminster politics before and, let us be honest, he was relentlessly mediocre. This, remember, is a man who previously lost Labour leadership elections to both Ed Miliband and Jeremy Corbyn.

But, even if Burnham had fraction of the talent his acolytes believe, the plot to bring him back would still be a foolish one.

Voters do not like stitch-ups and the risk that, having secured the candidacy for Makersfield, Burnham goes on to lose it is not at all insignificant.

Allies of Burnham’s insist he is simply unbeatable in the constituency, where the party won 45 per cent of the vote in 2024.

Maybe they’re right but large majorities can easily vanish during unnecessary by-elections.

Back in 1966, Labour won the Hamilton constituency with 71 per cent of the vote. A year later, MP Tom Fraser resigned the seat to take up the chairmanship of the North of Scotland Hydro-Electric Board, forcing a by-election which the SNP’s Winnie Ewing won on a swing of almost 40 points.

In the 1987 General Election, Labour’s Bruce Millan won Glasgow Govan with 65 per cent of the vote. After he quit to become a European Commissioner a year later, the seat fell to the SNP’s Jim Sillars in the subsequent by-election.

Massive Labour majorities are not invulnerable to the effect of voter irritation.

And what of the banter factor? How will that impact the result in Makersfield?

A decade ago, members of the public were invited to propose and vote on the name of a new polar research ship. The winning suggestion was Boaty McBoatface, a name considered too whimsical by the killjoy organisers of the ballot who, instead, named it the RRS Sir David Attenborough.

Could Makersfield become the Boaty McBoatface by-election, with a result dictated by how amusing voters might find it?

But let’s say Andy Burnham does win the seat and, after returning to Westminster, swiftly deposes Keir Starmer. What then? Do Labour MPs seriously think voters will welcome being taken for granted in this way?

Perhaps allies of Burnham envisage a crowd on Downing Street singing their saviour into office with “He’s coming home, he’s coming home, he’s coming, Andy’s coming home”, before he addresses the nation with a speech of such power and lyricism that it brings back to the fold those lost to the Greens on the left and Reform UK on the right. But, more likely, I think would be a huge public backlash.

When the last Conservative government repeatedly changed PMs, Labour in opposition demanded each new leader go to the country. Otherwise, they had no mandate.

This was not correct. We don’t have a presidential system and the rules allow for any MP of the governing party to be elected by colleagues as national leader. It is the winning party that holds the mandate to govern, not any single politician.

But, while there is nothing that says Andy Burnham MP could not become Prime Minister there is, I think, a serious question about the legitimacy of a leader who did not stand under the party’s manifesto at a general election. A Burnham premiership would represent an imposition that Labour’s opposition would deride as undemocratic and self-serving. It would play into the hands of the insurgent political forces of Reform UK and the Greens which would – entirely accurately – accuse Labour of putting itself before the country.

Could Prime Minister Andy Burnham seriously claim a mandate to govern when he was not part of the winning team in 2024, or might people think him the political equivalent of former Chelsea captain John Terry, turning up in full kit to lift the Champions League trophy in 2012 despite not having played in the final?

Burnham’s ego risks plunging Labour deeper into crisis at a time when the party requires even a modicum of stability.

Yes, Starmer’s days as PM are over but his replacement should come from existing parliamentary ranks. This ridiculous Operation Andy wheeze creates nothing but risk for Labour.

There’s the risk of the party losing a by-election that did not have to be called and Burnham ending up a politically weakened mayor.

There’s the risk, if Burnham does win, that Labour goes on to lose the Manchester mayoralty in the subsequent election to replace him.

And there’s the risk that Andy Burnham actually becomes Prime Minister because the backlash to that stitch-up would be tsunami-like.