England is driving on the right politically

A ll is not well in the Labour party. Over the weekend Keir Starmer and his allies took the decision to throw away a by election in order to buy the politically ailing Starmer some more time in office.

Starmer and his allies on Labour’s NEC voted to refuse permission to Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham to stand as the Labour candidate in the upcoming Gorton and Denton by election in Greater Manchester. Starmer himself was one of those who voted against Burnham’s candidacy, all but one of the other members of the NEC meekly fell in line with their boss. This is despite the fact that when he stood for the Labour leadership¹, Starmer promised that the selection of Labour candidates should be a matter for the constituency Labour party. There’s another broken Starmer promise to add to the long list.

Burnham is widely regarded as a potential contender for the leadership of the Labour party should Starmer face a challenge and is the candidate favoured by what remains of the left in Labour. However in order to challenge Starmer as leader, Burnham needs to be an MP. His route back into Parliament has now been blocked for the remainder of this Parliament. By neutralising Burnham, Starmer does not make it less likely that he’ll face a challenge in the coming months, he has merely made it more likely that the challenge will come from someone on the right of the party. Protoplasmic Tory boy Wes Streeting, the darling of private healthcare companies, is the favoured candidate of the right wing entryists of Labour Together and would cement Labour’s transformation into a right wing party.

Starmer is merely delaying the inevitable, if as the polls suggest, in the Scottish, Welsh, and English local elections in May, Labour performs poorly and especially suffers the humiliation of losing control of Wales, the pressure on Starmer will only increase, and he will in addition be blamed for the loss of a safe Labour seat in a by election.

Following the decision Burnham posted on social media to express his anger that he had only discovered that he had been denied permission to stand as Labour candidate in the by election from the media, Labour HQ had not even extended him the courtesy of telling him privately before running to the press. That’s a sign of the bad blood which is boiling away beneath the surface of the glib public statements.

I have no particular affection for Andy Burnham, who during the 2014 Scottish independence referendum campaign was responsible for one of the most ludicrous scare stories in a campaign which was characterised by ludicrous scare stories from opponents of independence. In an interview with Holyrood magazine, supposedly a leading Scottish political magazine despite having fewer readers than this blog or several other Scottish blogs, Burnham spoke about his predictable opposition to Scottish independence, claiming that it would condemn England to Tory governments. He has now discovering the hard way that England will be condemned to Tory governments even if Labour is in power.

Burnham told Holyrood magazine: “I would feel really genuinely sad if Scotland votes for independence, not just for our own self-interest and in the extra difficulty we would face getting a Labour government in England but I also don’t want to drive up the M6 and get my passport out or have to drive on the right when I want to drive on the left.”²

Yes, he actually said that. It’s way up there in the furfeckssake stakes with the scare stories that in the event of Scottish independence, the RAF might have to bomb Scottish airports or that an independent Scotland would be defenceless against attacks from outer space.

However, I’m not a nationalist I’m British centrist as he is, Burnham represented Labour’s last best chance to maintain a tenuous connection to its origins as an anti-establishment democratic socialist party. That chance has gone now. This can only strengthen the chances of the SNP and the Greens in May’s Scottish elections and Plaid and the Greens in that month’s Welsh Senedd election. It tells us just how far to the right the modern Labour party has shifted that Andy Burnham is being presented by the British media as the left wing candidate.

Meanwhile Welsh First Minister, Labour’s Eluned Morgan, has warned that a Labour defeat in May’s Scottish and Welsh elections means that there is a “real possibility” that we could see the “break-up of the United Kingdom after the May elections.”³ Threaten us with a good time why don’t you.

A recent YouGov poll put Plaid Cymru as the largest party in Wales, on 37% of the vote, with Reform in second place on 23%. For the first time, the Greens were in third place at 13%, while Labour hit its lowest ever point in a Senedd voting intention poll, on just 10%, equal to the Tories. The English and Welsh Greens back Welsh independence so there is a very real possibility that after May, Wales, like Scotland could have a parliament with a pro-independence majority.

Defending his decision to block Burnham’s candidacy, Starmer said that allowing him to stand would be a distraction from the fight to keep Reform out of power. The Reform that you’ve been pandering to and implicitly justifying since you came into office, Keir? That Reform? Or is there some other Reform UK that you are campaigning against which you haven’t told us about?

Reform UK themselves continue to sook up the dregs of the Tory party, Suella Braverman, former Tory Home Secretary and serial breaker of the ministerial code, defected to Reform UK this week, as did some no mark Tory councillor in Argyle and Bute.

GOING FURTHER

• Starmer defends blocking Burnham in by-election bid as backlash continues | ITV

• Labour oppose Scottish independence because they fear losing power in Westminster | THE TELEGRAPH

• Burnham will try again for Westminster return but declines offer of seat in 2027 | THE GUARDIAN

• Burnham denies claim he was told about by-election block before applying | SKY NEWS

• Plaid open 14 point lead over Reform UK in Senedd voting intention | YOUGOV

• Why Labour banned Burnham – and what the ‘King of the North’ might do next | THE GUARDIAN

• Scottish independence - What Are The Pros and Cons? | POLITICS.CO.UK

• Welsh political snapshot, January 2026 | YOUGOV

Sources:

▪ This piece was first published in Wee Ginger Dug and re-published in Europeans TODAY on 30 January 2026 under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International licence. | The author writes in a personal capacity.

▪ Cover: Flickr/Number 10. (Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.)