Burnham would probably have won by-election, Labour deputy leader says

Andy Burnham would probably have won the Gorton and Denton by-election had he been allowed to stand, Labour's deputy leader has said.

Lucy Powell told the BBC's Newscast podcast that Labour needed to make more use of the Greater Manchester mayor, after the party fell to third in a seat it had previously held.

The Green Party won its fifth Commons seat in Thursday's vote, with Hannah Spencer becoming its newest MP, while Reform UK came second.

The result has led to further questioning of the decision by Labour's ruling National Executive Committee (NEC) to block Burnham from contesting the seat.

The committee had cited the "disproportionate" cost to the party of a mayoral election to replace Burnham when it blocked his bid to stand in the Greater Manchester seat.

Powell was the only member of the NEC to vote in favour of Burnham.

But she told Newscast she accepted "collective responsibility" for the decision because of the mayoral by-election concern.

Powell said if Burnham had been allowed to stand then "I think certainly the Greens wouldn't have gone after the seat in the same way that they did".

Now she said the party needs to look at why Burnham is so popular in Greater Manchester, saying people "see in him someone who is on their side, someone who is delivering those Labour values and those Labour policies".

"We have to draw on that, make use of Andy Burnham, but also... reflect on how we could do that better nationally and better as a government," she said.

"And I know from talking to Keir many, many times over recent weeks, before this by-election and since, that that is something he is very focused on doing."

The Greater Manchester mayor previously told the BBC he had put his name forward for the by-election as he believed he was "probably in a better position than anybody to fight back" against Labour's opponents.

Burnham, who has been viewed as a potential leadership rival to Sir Keir, said: "What I was offering the party, I think, was an alternative path to the one that the party is now on."

Sir Keir was among the eight NEC members who voted to bar Burnham from standing.

The PM's former deputy Angela Rayner said Labour's defeat at the by-election must come as a "wake-up call" and called on the government to be "braver".

The by-election was billed as a key strategic test for Labour, in a largely working-class suburb of Manchester that also contains a large number of students and a big Muslim population.