Labour Splits Erupt As Andy Burnham Blasts Starmer's 'London-Centric' Reshuffle

Andy Burnham has been critical of the culture within Keir Starmer's party.Splits within the Labour Party have been exposed after Andy Burnham launched an outspoken attack on Keir Starmer’s reshuffle.The Manchester mayor said the party had become too “London-centric” under Starmer, and said he hoped an MP from the north of England will succeed Angela Rayner as Labour’s deputy leader.He also hit out at the decision to strip the Labour whip from MPs who rebelled against the government’s plans to slash the welfare budget.Meanwhile, Emily Thornberry accused No.10 of “not listening to people of good will who want the party to succeed”.Starmer carried out a major shake-up of his cabinet on Friday in the wake of Rayner’s resignation after she broke the ministerial code by failing to pay enough stamp duty on a flat she bought near Brighton.Lucy Powell was sacked as Commons leader, a move which has sparked a furious backlash among Labour MPs, who believe it was linked to clashes she has had with Morgan McSweeney, the PM’s chief of staff.She was one of eight government frontbenchers from the north west of England to so far lose their jobs in the reshuffle.One senior Labour figure told HuffPost UK: “Compared to some of her colleagues who were not sacked, Lucy was head and shoulders above the others.“The list of executions in the north west is a massive amount for a single region. This is going to be a massive problem for No.10 and I suspect that they haven’t even noticed yet.”Another source said: “Lucy was prepared to challenge Morgan. She does push hard some times, maybe too far ,but she was very good at her job.”On the BBC’s Sunday With Laura Kuenssberg show this morning, Burnham said he was “concerned about the balance” in the new-look cabinet.,“I think we need to use the deputy leadership contest to discuss some of these things,” he said.“It is right to have a discussion about the internal management of the Labour Party, and at a time when we face a challenge of the scale and nature is as it is, you need everybody pulling together, all parts of the party pulling together.“That points to a party management style that is less factional and more pluralistic. They need to listen [to Labour MPs] more and respect them more.”Burnham added: “I see good MPs losing the whip, people like Rachel Maskell. That doesn’t seem fair to me, it didn’t happen in the governments I was in – Gordon Brown’s government or Tony Blair’s government. We need a different style here so that everyone’s included and pulling together.”Asked if Starmer and his team were “too thin skinned”, Burnham said: “I think at times it’s gone too far. I would like to see our MPs respected more. That is the debate we should have during the deputy leadership contest.”Burnham said he wanted to see a Labour MP from the north of England to become deputy leader to “counter the London-centricity” in the party.“It needs to be a bit of a reset for the government,” he said. “I wish the new cabinet and the ministerial team well, and I’m here to support them and work with them.“But I do think there needs to be a reset of the way we’re doing things. If the government says it’s going to do something, it should just do it.“This is a moment to take a bit of stock, reset and then as one Labour team, come back stronger.”Thornberry, who did not rule out standing for the deputy leadership, told the same programme: “We’ve gone from having the fantastic gift from the British public of having a huge majority to now being at 20% in the polls, and we will have in the next election the biggest fight of our lives against Farage.“The last thing we want is to go from a position where we thought we were going to be in for two terms, to hand our country over to Farage.”Asked what had gone wrong for Labour, she said: “It’s not listening to people of goodwill who want the party to succeed. I think we’ve got to do more of that. The answers are out there, but we need to continue to listen to the public.”Related...Keir Starmer Makes Labour MP A Minister Just 24 Hours After Sacking HimHow Keir Starmer's 'Growth And Boats' Reshuffle Could Create Even More Problems For The PMKeir Starmer Swings The Axe In Major Cabinet Reshuffle After Rayner Resignation

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