Keir Starmer vows to fight for his job if leadership challenge launched

Sir Keir Starmer has insisted he will fight for his job if he is challenged for the Labour leadership, as Reform UK and Labour insiders claimed Andy Burnham was facing a “tight” race in his bid to return to Westminster this week.

Starmer, speaking at the G7 summit in France, struck a defiant note ahead of Thursday’s Makerfield by-election, telling his rivals — including former health secretary Wes Streeting — to back off and let him get on with governing.

“I’ve been very clear throughout this that we won a significant general election result in 2024 with a mandate to bring about change,” the prime minister told Times Radio. “I’m not going to walk away from that so I will fight if there’s a challenge. I don’t think there should be a challenge.”

Labour’s campaign in Makerfield, a predominantly white working-class seat in Greater Manchester, is quietly confident that Burnham will win on Thursday and fend off Nigel Farage’s Reform party.

But some Labour insiders who have campaigned locally are less sure. One said: “I’m less confident than the general vibe, both in the campaign and in the polls. It feels to me like we might be 4-5 points ahead and anything can happen to a lead of that size.”

Reform’s hopes have been dented by a strong showing locally of the nativist Restore Britain party, but Farage’s party has not given up hope of pulling off a shock victory.

“We’re in with a shout — it’s going to be tight,” said one Farage ally. Another senior Reform figure who has campaigned in Makerfield said Burnham’s rise looked “inevitable” but added: “What matters as ever is turnout on the day. I note rain is projected — will that dampen the ardour?”

In a sign that Reform has not thrown in the towel, Farage is said by his team to be preparing to campaign in Makerfield on Wednesday and Thursday; normally party leaders do not want to be personally associated with a likely defeat.

Bookmakers have Burnham as heavy odds-on favourite to win the seat, which was vacated by former Labour MP Josh Simons to clear the way for the Greater Manchester mayor to return to Westminster. Reform’s candidate Robert Kenyon is typically around 4-1 with bookies.

Burnham’s team hopes that Starmer will set an orderly timetable for a transition to a new leader if the former cabinet minister wins in Makerfield, rather than fighting for his job and triggering a potentially lengthy leadership contest.

However, Streeting believes that Burnham should be thoroughly tested in a leadership contest and opinion polls suggest that the mayor’s popularity has been falling since he emerged as a prospective prime minister.

In YouGov’s latest favourability poll, Burnham has a net favourability rating of minus 11, with 30 per cent of Britons liking the would-be leader, versus 41 per cent who dislike him. Before mid-May his favourability score was positive.

Yet Burnham is still much more popular than Starmer, who has a net favourability rating of minus 46. YouGov’s poll gives Streeting, who quit the cabinet last month, a minus 38 favourability rating.

Streeting on Tuesday insisted that he had enough MP backers to stand and vowed to force a contest, as he argued that Labour must stop being “squeamish” about competition.

The former health secretary said “the tax burden in Britain is too high” and that Labour must not “deter the wealth creators from this country” as he argued his party should defend internationally competitive UK industries.

Despite promising a “wealth tax that works” through equalising capital gains and income tax, Streeting said reliefs would be “more generous to genuine entrepreneurs”.

“As taxes on wealth go up, and as the public finances allow, I would want to see taxes on employment coming down,” he added.

In a speech setting out his economic plan, which will be seen by some as a pitch to become the next chancellor, Streeting signalled his disagreement with Burnham, who last month said that the past four decades had “given us wide inequality”.

Streeting said: “I don’t believe we’ve sat through 40 years of neoliberal failure.” He added: “There is a real risk that a Labour leadership contest becomes a Dutch auction of the most expensive and popular pledges to appeal to the party faithful at the expense of the British people.”