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Andy Burnham has taken another big step towards becoming the UK’s next prime minister after his last potential rival for the Labour Party leadership ruled out mounting a challenge.
Former armed forces minister Al Carns told Sky News that a drawn-out, divisive leadership contest was “not the best use of Labour’s time” and called on his party to “get on board” with Burnham.
Carns’ decision leaves Burnham as the only candidate left in the field. Nominations for the contest are set to open on Thursday. If no other candidate declares, then Burnham would take over as Labour leader and PM later this month.
In a post on X, Carns said Burnham had his “full backing” and that he had “earned this”.
“Our job now as a Labour team is to help him succeed, because the country needs him to,” he added.
Darren Jones, the chief secretary to the PM and Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, had also been tipped to run for the leadership, but he announced that he would step aside last month, questioning how the country and party would benefit from holding a contest.
It comes after UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer announced he was stepping down from office in June. Starmer, who had been under increasing pressure since Labour’s disastrous local election results in May, will remain in his role until the party announces a successor.
Burnham said he would run for leader after winning the Makerfield by-election in June, where he secured around 55% of the vote and beat out candidates from both Nigel Farage’s Reform UK party and Rupert Lowe’s hard-right Restore Britain.
Burnham previously served as the MP for Leigh from 2001 to 2017 before becoming the Mayor of Greater Manchester, overseeing a period of strong economic and cultural growth in the region.
Since his return to Westminster, he has homed in on domestic issues as he sets out his political agenda, pledging to end trickle-down economics and neoliberalism and vowing to build a “No. 10 North,” which he says will help power flow into other parts of the UK.
On a more international front, Burnham has previously called for the UK to rejoin the European Union, but during his Makerfield campaign, he dampened expectations he could try to reenter the bloc, saying that while he still believed Brexit had been costly to the UK, he did not think it was the right time to reopen the debate.
“My view is that Brexit has been damaging,” he said in May. “But I also believe the last thing we should do right now is rerun those arguments”.