"Hand-to-Mouth" Operation vs. No 10 Ambition: Can Andy Burnham's Shoestring Team Topple Starmer and Win Power?

23 May 2026 | London & Makerfield — Updated 19:30 GMT

In a community centre in Makerfield, a former cabinet minister turned Manchester mayor takes the stage. The room is half-full. The sound system crackles. His campaign team — a handful of volunteers, a few MPs on the soft left, and a chief of staff who has followed him for fifteen years — works the crowd with clipboards and hope.

Andy Burnham wants to be prime minister. But the machine behind him is tiny. "Hand-to-mouth," one insider calls it. Shoestring. Running on fumes and faith.

Across London, in the Treasury's grand corridors, Rachel Reeves is fighting a different battle. Her allies are whispering in MPs' ears: "Keep her. The markets trust her. Ed Miliband? He'd spook the bond markets."

In Brussels, a British official pitches a single market for goods. The EU says no. The ghosts of Brexit negotiations past rattle their chains.

Labour is not in government. It is in waiting — and the waiting is tearing it apart.

MAKERFIELD/LONDON/BRUSSELS – Andy Burnham may have his eyes on No 10, but the team charged with propelling him to parliament is tiny and run on a shoestring. One person involved said it was operating in a "hand-to-mouth" way, staffed mostly by volunteers and MPs on the soft left who want to see the Greater Manchester mayor return to Westminster.

Those who know Burnham say he has been thinking about re-entering parliament for a long time, and wants to bring his creed of "Manchesterism" — a blend of devolution, public ownership, and progressive economics — to the national stage. His ideas are well developed, having run in two Labour leadership campaigns previously, and have been put to the test in a major city.

The Inner Circle: Who's Who in Burnham's Shoestring Operation

The endgame for Burnham is becoming prime minister — a job that needs preparation, a network of political allies and a close-knit team of advisers, which Keir Starmer has discovered to his cost. So who is helping Burnham with his quest for power?

Kevin Lee is Burnham's chief of staff and right-hand man. The pair have worked together for more than 15 years, including during Burnham's time in the shadow cabinet, his campaign for the Greater Manchester mayoralty, and his nine years as mayor. Lee is considered indispensable — and they come as a team.

Josh Simons, the former Makerfield MP who stood down to make way for Burnham, is now by his side. He does not have a formal role yet but has been campaigning alongside Burnham in the constituency. He comes from a policy and academic background and is not short of ideas on revitalising Labour.

Anneliese Midgley, an MP and organiser, is working as the campaign's "political lead." A former adviser to Ken Livingstone and Jeremy Corbyn, she was also key to Starmer's project before her election. She now represents the neighbouring constituency of Knowsley.

Louise Haigh, the former transport secretary and a prominent member of the Tribune group in parliament, has been a key ally of Burnham among MPs and is helping with his campaign. The Tribune group set out a programme for economic renewal and a more active state earlier this month.

Lucy Powell, the deputy leader of the party, has been loyal to the government but is also an ally of the mayor and a fellow Manchester MP. She has been taking on a role helping with the Makerfield campaign and has previously run byelections as well as having directed Ed Miliband's 2015 national Labour campaign.

Ed Miliband, the energy secretary, is another political friend of Burnham. He was in contention for a run at the leadership himself if an immediate contest had been triggered against Starmer last week. Now Burnham is back in the mix, Miliband has swung behind the mayor's effort to re-enter parliament.

The Brains: Lawson, Lawrence and the 'Manchesterism' Philosophy

One of the people influential on Burnham's worldview is Neal Lawson – the director of the centre-left Compass thinktank. He is a proponent of closer working between progressives, with Burnham having said he would like Labour to go into the next election promising to change the voting system.

"Real change, not cosmetic," Lawson told the Guardian last week. "This is deep political, democratic, economic, social change. I think he can win on that ticket and through his commitment to PR, to pluralism, to new politics, he can win over the Greens as well."

Mathew Lawrence, the political economist and director of the Common Wealth project, has been one of those to set out the philosophy of Manchesterism in a piece for the New Statesman. He has also been critical of the government's failure to make a muscular difference on the cost of living, writing in the Guardian: "Water, energy and transport should be brought back into public ownership and run for public benefit rather than private extraction. This isn't just about fairness – it's sound macroeconomic policy."

Luke Hurst, of the Burnham-supporting Mainstream Group, is another important figure, while Miatta Fahnbulleh, a former minister who resigned last week, is said to be helping to work on policy.

But some MPs who support Burnham have begun fretting that the close team he will need to mount a genuine challenge to Starmer is not yet strong enough. "There is not a big well-organised machine behind him yet," says one MP. "We hear talk of a first hundred days plan, so we just hope that is being done."

Reeves Fights Back: 'I Should Stay as Chancellor'

While Burnham focuses on Makerfield, Rachel Reeves has launched a rearguard action to save her job as chancellor, telling friends she would like to stay in the post even under a new prime minister.

The chancellor's supporters have been urging MPs to back her if Starmer is replaced later this year, saying she is the only candidate who can safeguard the country's finances. The backbench lobbying push comes amid a broader tussle among Labour MPs for position as they prepare for what happens if Burnham wins and replaces Starmer.

Reports have suggested Burnham is considering appointing Ed Miliband as chancellor if he makes it to No 10. But Reeves' allies are warning that the energy secretary would not be trusted by the bond markets, which set the government's borrowing costs.

One Labour MP close to the chancellor said: "I am concerned that we may lose everything if a new leader sacrifices the chancellor for promises and new alliances they are currently forging with MPs who fancy the job for themselves. The biggest fear for the bond markets and the unions is Ed Miliband."

Another said: "Rachel has been very candid with us about the need to carry on. A double change is not the right thing to do. With her credibility in the markets, if Rachel is given a clearer and slightly different direction she could provide the necessary assuredness to the markets. Ed Miliband wouldn't be able to do that."

Rachel Reeves has had one of her better weeks in office, but faces a fight to remain chancellor under a new leader.

Reeves' Better Week — But Headwinds Remain

Against the backdrop of tumult in the Labour party, Reeves has had one of her better weeks in office. On Monday, the International Monetary Fund increased its forecast for UK growth, predicting the economy would grow 1% this year rather than 0.8%. Then on Wednesday, figures showed inflation falling to 2.8%, faster than economists had expected. On the same day, the prime minister announced that the government would postpone the planned rise in fuel duty.

On Thursday, Reeves announced the final pieces of her cost-of-living plan, revealing a surprise cut to VAT on family attractions such as soft play centres and theme parks for the summer. In the Treasury, officials were delighted that the "Great British Summer Savings" plan led the news bulletins all afternoon, and that it had not been leaked beforehand.

But Reeves continues to face serious headwinds. As well as the likelihood that Burnham would seek a clean break with the Starmer government in senior roles, she has struggled to persuade MPs or the public that she can overcome the new economic challenges posed by the Iran war. On Friday, figures showed that the government borrowed more last month than expected.

Some Labour MPs have been infuriated by what they see as Reeves' open lobbying to remain in her job when they see her as being at fault for many of the mistakes Starmer has made in office, such as cutting winter fuel payments or attempting to reduce disability benefits.

"Every single one of us understands how important credibility is with the bond markets," said one Labour MP. "We all signed up to a manifesto with the fiscal rules at their core."

The EU Dimension: UK's Single Market Pitch Rebuffed

As Labour fights internally over leadership, the government's external ambitions have hit a wall. The Guardian can reveal that the UK government pitched the creation of a single market for goods with the EU as the cornerstone of an ambitious attempt to reintegrate British trade back into Europe.

During recent visits to Brussels, the Cabinet Office's top official on EU relations, Michael Ellam, presented the idea to deepen the UK's economic relationship with the bloc. But in a sign of the challenge Starmer's government faces in securing growth through a closer relationship with Europe, sources said that EU officials rejected the idea — and instead suggested a customs union or economic alignment through the European Economic Area.

Those ideas are impossible under Starmer's red lines. He said in 2024 the UK would not rejoin the EU, the single market or customs union in his lifetime. The EEA would also mean accepting free movement of people, another Labour red line.

UK government sources, however, denied that the EU had definitively rejected a single market for goods and said it was among a range of options being discussed before a summit tentatively pencilled in for 13 July.

An EU diplomat said the EU's approach was based on its interests: "If you start going back on those principles – leading to a non-member being treated better than an actual member – you certainly would trigger an internal debate on the fundamentals of [EU] cooperation."

Following the rebuff over a single market for goods, EU officials are not expecting the government to do much on defining a future agenda before the Makerfield byelection in June, where Labour faces a tough challenge from the anti-EU Reform party.

Burnham, who is expected to stand to replace Starmer as prime minister if he wins, has said he will not try to return the UK to the EU and promised "a relentless domestic focus."

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