Membership in the soft left
There are no really reliable estimates of the changing balance of alignments within the Labor membership. Measuring this is difficult because of the massive membership movements between 2010 and 2026. Most observers would agree that membership moved after 2015 and then right after 2020.
Paradoxically, the center of gravity between ranks and files did not change dramatically. Close party observers agreed that moderate party members tended to be soft leftists. That’s why Starmer contested the 2020 race on a (quickly abandoned) soft-left platform. If Burnham had done the same in 2015, he might have won.
The structure of the competition in Burnham’s three races varied significantly. In 2010 he was not a serious contender, with the race effectively between the Miliband brothers Ed and David. In 2015 there were four contestants: Burnham, Corbyn from the hard left and Liz Kendall and Yvette Cooper from the right.
As a member of the shadow cabinet under Ed Miliband, Burnham had moved to the left and was initially seen as the frontrunner. However, he made a fatal miscalculation by assuming that in response to losing the 2015 election, the party would move to the right, and so he did.
In effect, the party shifted left and Corbyn was able to wipe out the left vote – including those broadly on the soft left.
Burnham learned his lesson. After leaving parliament and winning the newly created post of Mayor of Greater Manchester, he increasingly adopted a soft left-wing stance. In the race to succeed Starmer, there were only three other credible candidates: Angela Rayner and Ed Miliband from the soft left and Wes Streeting from the right.
Here, the case intervened on Burnham’s side. Popular Rayner was is forced to resign as deputy prime minister and vice president on a tax issue. Otherwise, she probably would have been in pole position. Like Rayner, Miliband, who worked closely with Burnham, was unwilling to stand against him as both shared his soft left stance. That went away The road. His problem was simple: even if he collected the 81 nominations he required, as a right-hander he had no chance of beating Burnham in a leadership race. Streeting knew this, so he decided not to stay.
Finally, among Burnham’s personal qualities, two are worth mentioning. The first is his undoubted popularity among those who know him best – his constituents in Greater Manchester. More broadly, he normally gets a better net rating than any other Labor politician.
The second is his willingness to take a huge risk by running for a constituency, Makerfield, that he could easily have lost. Every ward of her was won by the Reformation in local elections and its demographics made it a prime target for the party.
But Burnham’s surprise landslide victory in the primary demonstrated his mass appeal. For hundreds of beleaguered Labor MPs, fearful of losing their seats, he was seen as their one and only lifeline. Burnham had staked his career on Makerfield and won.
Eric ShawHonorary Researcher in Politics, University of Stirling
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