Andy Burnham, the former mayor of Greater Manchester in north-west England, will replace Keir Starmer with the support of ruling Labor Party MPs.
Just last month, Mr Burnham won a key by-election in Makerfield, north-west England, the US equivalent of a special election, which began with the sole purpose of running for leadership of the Labor Party as a sitting MP.
Less than two years after Labour’s landslide general election victory, Mr Starmer’s authority has crumbled, while Nigel Farage’s populist right-wing Reform UK party and the populist left-wing Green Party have soared in the polls. Allies said Mr Burnham was the only person who could halt the party’s electoral decline in a way that the highly unpopular Mr Starmer could not.
Over the past few years, Burnham has quietly become one of the country’s most popular politicians. His charismatic persona has managed to mask the contradictions in his public image, including his insistence that he is a Westminster outsider despite becoming a parliamentary investigator at 24, a special assistant at 28 and a first-time MP at 31.
During his 16 years as an MP, he served in both Tony Blair’s and Gordon Brown’s governments, eventually rising to the post of health secretary, before making two unsuccessful bids for the Labor leadership in 2010 and 2015. In its second leadership election, it was defeated by Jeremy Corbyn, a veteran socialist whose victory shifted the party to the left.
Mr Burnham initially served in Corbyn’s shadow cabinet, but his appointment as Manchester mayor in 2017 allowed him to largely sideline the factional wars that consumed Labor during and immediately after Corbyn’s government.
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