Patrick Hurley: Why it's time for Andy Burnham to replace Keir Starmer
The Southport MP write for The Southport Lead on why it is time for change
Hello and welcome to a bonus edition of The Southport Lead.
In the aftermath of last month’s local elections, calls for Keir Starmer to quit as Labour leader and Prime Minister grew louder and a sense of inevitability grew as Health Secretary Wes Streeting quit and others looked set to follow.
Southport MP Patrick Hurley was among the voices calling for calmness and offer some support to Starmer. One of the factors in that may have been the lack of a suitable alternative but on Thursday, Andy Burnham won a huge election win to return to Parliament as the MP for Makerfield in the first step of an effort to become the next Prime Minister.
Writing in The Southport Lead, Hurley explains why he now does believe it’s time for Starmer to plan his exit and why he will be backing Burnham to be his replacement.
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“To everything there is a season. A time to win power and a time to wield that power”
By Patrick Hurley, MP for Southport
To everything there is a season. A time to rally around a leader, and a time for call for change.
Yesterday, I went on the radio and requested that the Prime Minister sets out a timetable for him to pass the torch on to someone new. This wasn’t an easy thing for me to do. I’ve been loyal to Keir Starmer, both publicly and privately. I supported the changes he made to the Labour Party after 2019 because they were necessary.
After our second-worst election defeat in history, Labour had to rebuild trust with the public. We had to show that we were serious about governing again.
On that measure, Keir succeeded beyond what almost anyone thought possible.
He is, and will remain, a monumental figure in Labour politics. He took the party from a position where many people thought we might be out of power for a generation to one of the biggest election victories in our history. He ended fourteen years of Conservative government and restored Labour’s credibility with voters. Whatever happens next, that achievement deserves recognition. He will go down in history as one of the most important and most effective leaders the Labour Party has ever had.
That is why I have found the current debate so difficult. My concern is not really about personalities. Rather, my concern is about whether the way we are governing matches the scale and urgency of the challenges the country faces.
Britain is carrying the weight of problems that have built up over many years. Economic growth has been weak for far too long. Public services are under pressure. Too many people feel less secure than they did a decade ago. Too many young people struggle to see a route to a decent life through work, home ownership and family life. In many towns, people feel that things no longer work as well as they once did.
None of this is Keir Starmer’s fault, and so I’m not looking to apportion any blame to him. Indeed, it was obvious in Opposition that he understood the scale of the challenge. This is what he said in 2023, nine months before the General Election:
“Our job in 1997 was to rebuild a crumbling public realm. In 1964 it was to modernise an economy left behind by the pace of technology. In 1945 to build a new Britain out of the trauma of collective sacrifice. In 2024 it will have to be all three.”
To everything there is a season. A time for diagnosis, and a time for treatment.
What I hear from people in Southport is not a demand for miracles. They know the scale of the inheritance. They know fourteen years of decline cannot be undone overnight. But they are increasingly asking when they are going to start seeing the benefits of change. They want stronger growth, better public services and a greater sense that government is moving with purpose.
I think we’ve become a bit too comfortable announcing plans, reviews and taskforces when what the public increasingly want is decisive, urgent action. There is nothing wrong with a review. There is nothing wrong with a strategy. Good government should be thoughtful and evidence-based. But there comes a point when people want decisions to be made and change to be delivered.
Keir’s strengths as Leader of the Opposition were exactly what Labour needed after 2019. He was careful, methodical and cautious. He rebuilt trust in the party and put us back into contention for government. Government, however, requires something more. It requires speed. It requires urgency. It requires a willingness to take decisions and push them through.
To everything there is a season. A time for caution, and a time for action.
The qualities that are needed to rebuild a political party after a historic defeat are not always the same qualities that are needed to drive change through government. That is not a criticism of Keir. It is simply an observation about the different challenges of opposition and power.
Which brings me to Andy Burnham. I’ve long admired him, even while I voted for others to be party leader when he stood in both 2010 and 2015. Whether campaigning for justice for Hillsborough families, standing up for Greater Manchester during Covid, or arguing for greater devolution, he has shown a willingness to act – and act decisively – rather than simply comment. People respond to that because they can see the difference it makes.
I remain proud to be Labour. I want this government to succeed. More importantly, I want the country to succeed. But loyalty to a leader can never come before loyalty to the people who sent me to Parliament.
The question now is not how Labour can win power from the opposition benches. The question is how we use it. How we generate stronger growth. How we rebuild public services. How we deal with the challenges from overseas. How we solve the country’s problems. How we make life better for ordinary working people.
To everything there is a season. A time to win power, and a time to wield that power.