Burnham gathering momentum in wake of Yorkshire backing Reeves and Dugher boost his bid for top
Party’s failings brutally exposed
TWO OF Yorkshire’s senior Labour figures have thrown their support behind the party leadership ambitions of Andy Burnham, who has emerged as the favourite in the race to succeed Ed Miliband.
Shadow Transport Secretary and Barnsley East MP Michael Dugher will manage Mr Burnham’s campaign while Shadow Work and Pensions Secretary and Leeds West MP Rachel Reeves is to head up his review of Labour’s economic policy.
Their early public endorsement represents a blow to the campaigns of fellow Yorkshire Labour MPs Yvette Cooper and Mary Creagh with Mr Burnham, the Shadow Health Secretary, also expected to receive significant trade union backing.
Mr Burnham’s opponents fear Labour under his leadership would continue on the same path followed by Mr Miliband, which ended in electoral disaster earlier this month.
But yesterday he sought to present himself as the “change” candidate by suggesting Labour should be pressing for an earlier referendum on Britain’s membership of the European Union.
During the campaign Mr Miliband had repeatedly argued against the need for a public vote on the EU.
Mr Burnham said: “I have said very clearly and quickly that we need to bring forward that referendum, because the worst of all worlds is a prolonged period of uncertainty and argument.
“I want to make the pro-European case in this referendum. It is clear to me that the British interest is in staying in the EU.
“But I am warning that we will only be able to win that argument if we have a credible package of reforms on immigration.
“The public are asking for this. If we don’t deliver it, if David Cameron does not deliver it then we will be sleepwalking to exit from the EU.”
Mr Dugher also stressed Labour had to change in the wake of its election defeat and was scathing about supporters who have suggested it is voters rather than the party who were to blame for its woes.
“The party that promised a referendum won an election, so I actually think the voters have spoken, so therefore the issue is about when do we do that,” he said.
“Anyone who thinks we were right and the voters were wrong is going to find it a very long road indeed back to power.”
The Barnsley East MP said Mr Burnham had the “reach” to connect with the corners of the country where Labour did so badly in the election.
He told Sky News: “It’s no good stacking up bigger majorities as we did in South Yorkshire, we have got to win on the south coast as well.
“Andy Burnham absolutely understands the scale of the challenge.
“He has made the start of his leadership campaign about the most difficult issues.”
Writing on Twitter, Ms Reeves said Mr Burnham had the “courage, vision and determination Labour needs” as she confirmed her support for his campaign.
It was reported Mr Burnham is keen to snap up as many nomina- tions from MPs as possible to limit the field of potential rivals.
But Shadow Business Secretary Chuka Umunna, who last week withdrew his bid to be the next Labour leader, said it was crucial that there is an open debate over who becomes the next leader of the party.
“We can’t have a coronation,” he said. We’ve seen where that’s got us in the past. No one group, organisation or person should be allowed to stand in the way of us having this debate and discussion.”
He told The Sunday Times he wants to lead Labour’s EU referendum campaign, and would like to be appointed shadow foreign secretary.
THE NOTION that Jim Murphy, who only took over the leadership of the Scottish Labour Party five months ago, was responsible for Labour’s catastrophic election defeat north of the border is an absurdity which only highlights the problems Labour is having in coming to terms with Britain’s new political reality.
No one has done more for the Labour cause in Scotland – nor, arguably, for the cause of unionism – than Mr Murphy, who has shown courage and dedication in the way he has stood up to Scottish nationalism.
Yet it is a measure of Labour’s failings that its best and brightest politicians are being allowed to fall by the wayside as the party tries to establish its future direction.
Mr Murphy’s resignation, after alleged bullying by the Unite union, follows the withdrawal from the leadership race of Chuka Umunna, who was struggling to gain sufficient support in the party.
Yet, considering that Mr Umunna was perhaps best placed to help Labour appeal to the middle classes and the business community whose support is so desperately needed, where does that leave the party?
Andy Burnham bills himself as the “change” candidate, but the only thing he seems to have changed is his own views as he has moved from being a Blairite moderniser to someone who can talk about nothing other than the Conservatives’ (nonexistent) plans to privatise the NHS.
And while Yvette Cooper does at least seem to have grasped that Labour’s problem in its supposed northern heartlands such as Yorkshire is losing voters to the UK Independence Party, no leader is going to take Labour back to power without winning the support of Conservative voters.
Are the likes of Liz Kendall, Mary Creagh or Tristram Hunt capable of doing this? Not unless they can achieve the formidable task of uniting their fractious party, facing down the trade unions and other voices of the past and rebuilding Labour firmly on the centre ground of politics.
Until that happens, the party will struggle to provide a decent opposition, let alone start dreaming about forming a new government.