Labour leadership drama has ground the government to a halt, MPs say
Next month’s byelection in Makerfield will determine whether Andy Burnham can launch a leadership challenge. Until then, ‘nothing will get done’
Andy Burnham has not — in the formal sense, anyway — launched a direct challenge to Keir Starmer’s leadership. Nor is he guaranteed to win June’s byelection in Makerfield, triggered last week by the stepping down of MP Josh Simons.
Yet even before Burnham was confirmed as Labour’s candidate for the race on Tuesday, the simple fact that the party machine had cleared the way for him to put his name forward had already proved a hugely consequential political development — one that has caused a total slowdown in and around government.
“I had a meeting with a minister postponed because of all this nonsense,” one Labour MP told me, “and for the next few months nothing will get done.”
Another said: “When there’s leadership chaos, government basically stops. The electorate loses out. You can’t get anything through because personnel will change halfway through the process and work gets lost. It’s tragic and we are losing more time.”
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The same frustration has been mirrored to me by other backbenchers I have spoken in the last week or so. The complaint comes in two parts: first, that the attention of every minister, every adviser and every whip is now consumed by the leadership psychodrama playing out in plain sight and, second, that with no minister guaranteed to keep their job into the autumn, it is hard to rally the machinery of state to do anything substantive at all.
“Total shambles,” is how a third Labour MP described it to me.
No formal challenge has been lodged against the prime minister. But the events of recent weeks tell their own story. Trade union leaders are briefing that the prime minister should step aside. Wes Streeting, unshackled from collective responsibility, is now freely making the argument that Britain should consider reversing Brexit at some point. Burnham is preparing his pitch around Makerfield.
Beyond Burnham, that byelection is becoming a microcosm of the political battle now consuming the country: Labour taking on Reform UK in a post-Brexit England that no longer behaves in predictable ways. The greater national struggle is about to be played out on a smaller scale.
Burnham’s path back to Westminster runs through a seat that voted decisively to leave the EU and whose council wards Reform UK swept in the local elections only weeks ago. At the last general election, Makerfield recorded the sixth-highest Reform vote share in the country and, of the five constituencies above it, Reform succeeded in electing MPs in four.
Nigel Farage has already made clear that Reform would target the seat aggressively in any byelection campaign, raising the prospect of a bruising and highly symbolic contest.
Burnham’s allies put his chances of winning at around 45%. National polling would suggest the real number is lower. The majority is just over 5,000 and history suggests governing parties rarely survive byelections in seats that are so vulnerable.
That is why Labour figures are watching this so nervously. Makerfield is not just about one seat. It is a test of whether Labour can still hold together the electoral coalition that brought it to power and whether Reform’s advance into the party’s traditional territory can be stopped at all.
If Burnham wins, the question of Starmer’s future becomes one the prime minister can no longer politely deflect, and the newly elected MP will undoubtedly waste no time in trying to take the keys to No 10.
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If he loses, though, the recriminations inside Labour will make the current ructions look mild. If Labour’s king over the water, the man with better personal approval ratings than any other Labour politician, cannot win in the so-called red wall against Reform, then the party is in profound trouble.
While the two men shadowbox for a job that has not formally been declared vacant, the rest of the government must surely be starting to wonder what the point of it all is — especially with Starmer not making it clear whether he would fight any contender or step aside.
Starmer’s allies argue that he has refused to set a timetable for his own departure precisely because doing so would invite open warfare and label him a lame duck. Others in the party are not so sure that holding the line buys him anything at all.
“We said we were different to the Tories,” said another MP, “but we’ve been hit with scandals, we’re fighting amongst each other and focusing on ourselves and not policy. We need to get our act together fast.”
Shehab Khan is an award-winning presenter and political correspondent for ITV News.
Editor’s note: this article was updated after publication on 19 May 2026 to reflect the fact that Andy Burnham had been selected as the Labour candidate in the Makerfield by-election, which is due to take place in June 2026.
