24JUL

Josh Simons quits Makerfield for Burnham

3 min read

12:51UTC

Josh Simons resigned the Makerfield seat he won in 2024 to clear a path for Andy Burnham; the Greater Manchester Mayor cannot contest the Labour leadership without a Commons return.

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Key takeaway

Simons cleared the seat; the NEC decides whether Burnham can use it.

Josh Simons resigned the Makerfield constituency on the morning of Thursday 14 May, the seat he won in 2024. His statement said he was "standing aside so that Andy Burnham can return to his home, fight to re-enter Parliament."⁠¹ Burnham, the Greater Manchester Mayor, has held no Commons seat since 2017 and cannot stand for the Labour leadership without one.

The procedural test runs through the NEC (Labour's National Executive Committee), which controls candidate approval for by-elections. The NEC blocked Burnham 8-1 the last time he sought a parliamentary candidacy, a public-record figure that turns the Makerfield vacancy into the leadership crisis's first formal vote. Starmer's remaining institutional lever runs through that committee. A second 8-1 block would end the Burnham route on the same day Simons created it. Approval, by contrast, lights the contest. The PLP arithmetic published the same week as the Reform sweep is why Starmer's camp needs the lever.

The figures that make Makerfield worth attempting sit in event 3: Survation polling has Burnham 61 to 39 against the incumbent among Labour members, and the same series shows Wes Streeting losing the equivalent head-to-head. The challenger with the numbers holds no seat; the challenger with the seat lacks the numbers. Simons resigning the Lancashire-border constituency builds the bridge designed to close that gap on 14 May.

Angela Rayner's HMRC clearance the same day, over the stamp-duty settlement on her £800,000 flat, adds a second-track contingency. An ally told LBC Rayner is "backing Andy now, essentially, but will run herself if he can't." If the NEC blocks Makerfield, the contest does not stop; it switches candidate.

Deep Analysis

In plain English

Andy Burnham is the Mayor of Greater Manchester. He used to be an MP but gave it up in 2017 to run the mayor's office. To stand for the Labour leadership, he needs to be an MP again. Josh Simons, who held the seat in Makerfield (a constituency near Wigan in the north-west of England), resigned on Thursday so Burnham could stand in the by-election that follows. If Burnham wins the by-election, he qualifies for the leadership race. But first Labour's ruling committee, the NEC, has to approve him as the candidate. The last time Burnham tried to get back into Parliament, the NEC blocked him eight votes to one. Starmer still has allies on the NEC. So the first real test of the leadership battle is not a vote of the whole party: it's a committee vote.

Deep Analysis

Root Causes

Andy Burnham left Parliament in 2017 to become Greater Manchester Mayor, a role that pays £110,000 per year and gives him a nine-year executive record that no Commons backbencher can match. The decision to leave Parliament created the structural constraint now visible: the Labour leadership rules, written for a parliamentary party, have no provision for a serving mayor.

The NEC's 8-1 blocking of Burnham for a previous seat was an expression of factional control, not a principled rule. The Collins review (2014) gave the NEC candidate-approval powers designed to allow the leadership to manage the parliamentary party's composition. A sitting Prime Minister facing a leadership challenge retains access to that mechanism, which is why Makerfield is simultaneously a procedural fight and a political one.

What could happen next?

Risk
If the NEC blocks Burnham, the Rayner contingency activates; Rayner as candidate splits the Labour parliamentary party differently, because her support base (trade unions, northern MPs) and Burnham's (mayors, metro Labour) are not identical.
Precedent
A by-election used to re-admit a leadership candidate establishes that the NEC vetting function is the operative gatekeeping mechanism for succession; future candidates without seats will face the same structural gate.

Source Landscape

This story draws on neutral-leaning sources

Primary parallel: In December 1964, Reginald Sorensen, Labour MP for Leyton, took a life peerage to open a safe seat for Patrick Gordon Walker. Gordon Walker was Foreign Secretary but had lost Smethwick at the general election. The mechanism is the same: a sitting MP stands aside so a senior figure without a seat can enter the Commons. It also carries a warning. At the by-election on 21 January 1965, Leyton voters rejected Gordon Walker by 205 votes, and he resigned as Foreign Secretary.

Counter-parallel: Peter Mandelson left the Commons in 2004 to become an EU Commissioner, then returned to the Cabinet in October 2008 through a life peerage, without seeking a Commons seat again. The comparison shows that the Labour Party has accepted non-Commons pathways to senior political roles, but the leadership contest rule specifically requires a Commons seat: the Lords path is not available here.

Consensus view: Tim Bale, professor of politics at Queen Mary University of London and Labour Party historian, has noted that the NEC's candidate-vetting function has been used instrumentally by factional leaderships since at least 2016: the Momentum-era NEC's blocking of candidates it viewed as hostile established the practice. A Starmer-aligned NEC using the same mechanism against Burnham would be drawing on the same precedent.

Counter-view: Jess Garland at the Electoral Reform Society has argued that by-election candidate approval by a party's internal committee is structurally different from a general-election vetting, because the urgency and the publicity make a blocking decision publicly reviewable. An 8-1 block on Burnham a second time, in the middle of a leadership crisis covered on the front pages, carries a political cost the first block did not.

Key tension: Whether the NEC's existing factional composition has shifted enough since the previous 8-1 vote to produce a different outcome, or whether the Starmer faction retains sufficient seats on the committee to block again.

First Reported In

Update #8 · Mutiny in week one

PoliticsHome· 14 May 2026

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Causes and effects

Caused by

96 v 103: PLP split, no trigger

Burnham needs a parliamentary seat to qualify for the leadership contest — the direct reason Simons resigned Makerfield.

Occurred 14 May 2026

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This Event

Josh Simons quits Makerfield for Burnham

The Burnham vehicle requires both a by-election win and Labour NEC approval; the NEC blocked him 8-1 the last time he sought a parliamentary candidacy, which makes Makerfield the procedural pinch point of the entire crisis.

Led to

Labour NEC clears Burnham for Makerfield run

Simons' resignation of Makerfield on 14 May created the by-election vacancy Burnham needed to re-enter Parliament.

Occurred 15 May 2026

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Different Perspectives

Scottish National Party / John Swinney

Swinney told the SNP conference in Aberdeen on 17 October that Scotland is ready for independence, but set no referendum date, bill or Section 30 request. He launched a new campaign instead and extended the £2 bus fare cap to the north east from April 2027.

Liberal Democrats / Ed Davey

Davey ruled out a national partnership with the Greens on 19 October after their Brighton conference passed a "Zionism is racism" motion, and wrote to two Jewish community bodies. He left untouched the councils the two parties already run together.

Reform UK / Richard Tice

Tice alleged ITV's reporter used false details to get a press-office job and said ITV had "likely broken the law", telling members not to speak to it until it apologises. Reform also opened investigations into members, with some suspensions, so the party is contesting the broadcaster and disciplining councillors at once.

Rhun ap Iorwerth / Welsh Government (Plaid Cymru)

Ap Iorwerth presented six priorities to the Senedd on 22 September without numeric targets or a named partner party, promising to work across the chamber where there is common ground. He says his government will be judged on results.

Michael Marra / Scottish Labour

Marra won the leadership on 19 September, and three days later his 17 MSPs backed Swinney's right-to-decide motion once their child-poverty amendment was written in. He says Scottish Labour's task is to tell voters what it stands for.

Andy Burnham / Labour Party

Burnham told conference in Liverpool on 29 September that Labour's next manifesto will commit to changing the electoral system, and invited every party into a National Commission on Electoral Reform. He has not named a replacement system, and no chair or remit has been published.

Written with AI from Lowdown's published reporting. Not individually reviewed by an editor. Editorial standards.