Why Andy Burnham will NOT be Labour's first 'female PM' (and why this needs to be said) – Susan Dalgety

No, I haven’t been at the gin before breakfast. Earlier this week, a “senior Labour figure” told one of the country’s top political journalists, Tim Shipman, that Andrew Murray Burnham is not in fact who we thought he is – that is, the latest in the uninterrupted line of men in charge of the ‘people’s party' since Keir Hardie first took up the role in 1906. He is in fact “Labour’s first woman Prime Minister”.

The argument is so bonkers I had to read it three times before it sank in, but please, judge for yourself. The “senior” bloke (he has to be male, no woman would say anything as demented) told the Spectator magazine that the Labour party has never had a female leader because she would be too focused on girlie things like the NHS and the cost of living. He said: “The reason Labour have always craved, but also been cautious about, a female leader is because, in a Labour government, she could have an unashamedly female agenda, focused on health, education, family finances and issues like safer streets, social care, online safety for kids, that are disproportionately important to women.”

He keeps going: “Along comes Andy, surrounded by female advisers and backers, but more importantly, genuinely passionate about all those traditionally female-oriented issues, and much less so with the bombs and budgets. So could we finally see what Labour has failed to deliver all these years – a female PM in all but sex?"

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A jolly clever wheeze?

So there we have it. Burnham’s flirty eyelashes were the clue. He is really a woman, or at least a man whom senior figures in his party have identified as female. It is the apogee of the post-modern, gender-identity madness that has gripped our political class for more than a decade. Remember when our outgoing Prime Minister, Sir Keir Starmer, insisted that there were some women who had a penis? Was he thinking of Burnham? It all makes sense now. Or not.

I have my suspicions as to the identity of the Labour figure quoted, but there are plenty of smug, sexist blokes in the party who would think that asserting Burnham is a woman was a jolly clever wheeze – the spin to end all spins. “That will shut up those bloody women, always moaning about there never being a female in charge. Our Andy loves all that touchy feely stuff. And sex is just a feeling, isn’t it? Anyone can be a woman. Even our Andy.”

But setting aside this ridiculous notion, there remains a serious question as to why the party that has done so much to encourage female representation in politics has never had a woman leader. The Conservative party is on its fourth female leader in the last 50 years, including three Prime Ministers, and I can’t be the only centre-left woman who watches Kemi Badenoch in full flow and thinks: “Why can’t Labour have a woman like Kemi in charge?”

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Female Labour MPs reactions

Labour’s irrational fear of women does not extend to its sister parties in mainland Europe. Sweden’s Social Democratic party has had two women leaders and one, Magdalena Andersson, became Sweden’s first female Prime Minister in 2021. Norway’s Labour party has had several women leaders, including Gro Harlem Brundtland, who served three terms as Prime Minister, and in 2019, Finland’s government was a coalition of five centre-left parties – all led by women. Labour has got Burnham.

Following publication of the now infamous Spectator article, The House magazine reported extracts from the Women’s Parliamentary Labour party WhatsApp group where the MP for Thurrock, Jen Craft, wrote: “IMHO the reason we have never had a female leader is a mix of internalised underlying misogyny, but more importantly the absolute wave of s*** thrown at any strong Labour woman who looks like she might be a viable candidate.” To which Alison McGovern MP replied: “…Waves and waves of s***.”

I spoke to two Labour women who really are senior figures in the party, one a former parliamentarian with more than 20 years’ experience, the other elected in 2024. They both agreed that the reason the ‘people’s party’ has never had a female leader is because Labour men cannot be “convinced or embarrassed into ceding power”.

“It goes back to the fact that men only have to assert their ability. Women have to prove it,” said one. “We focus so much on being seen as competent, we don’t focus on showing off our leadership skills,” said the other. “I won’t progress because I don’t do the requisite ass-kissing,” she added.

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Standing by their man

The reluctant conclusion is that the Labour party, founded by male trade unionists and middle-class intellectuals, is inherently sexist. Its culture rewards women content to take second place to a man, whether it’s Tony Blair and his ‘babes’ or Burnham and his back-room team of strong Northern women.

The image this week of Burnham grinning in front of scores of women MPs, simpering as he asserted his power, sums up Labour’s women problem.

Burnham is not Labour’s first 'female' Prime Minister. He is another in a long line of Labour men who say they are in favour of equality, but not at the expense of their personal ambition. Whether it’s in the kitchen making tea or in the tearooms of Westminster promoting their boss, Labour women know their place, and it’s standing by their man.