A by-election in Makerfield means “life or death” for the Labour Party, according to Blue Labour founder Lord Maurice Glasman.
He told GB News: “There is an enormous working class anger directed towards Labour, and particularly to Keir Starmer, who seems to personify the procedural lanyard class. There’s a class hatred.
“Attlee, in the 1945 government, he sacked a minister. In those days, the minister had the audacity to go to see him and he went to see him. He didn’t look up, and the ex-minister said, ‘Why did you sack me? And he said, ‘Not up to the job’.
“What we’ve got to recognise is that Keir Starmer is overwhelmed by office. There needs to be a real conversation in Labour about who takes his place.”
Asked if Andy Burnham would be seen as the anti-Starmer Labour candidate, he said: “That’s absolutely obligatory. This is going to be a genuinely interesting by-election, because it will test whether Andy Burnham can re-connect with working class voters. It will test Reform and the durability of their relationship with the North-West.
“That was the surprising thing in the local elections. I knew the North-East had gone to Reform, but I always thought the North-West wouldn’t, but it really did, and it did precisely in the small towns.
“This is very different to Gorton. Nigel Farage is going to try and frame this as a Labour carpet-bagger who comes into Wigan in order to be parachuted, at least into the Cabinet, but probably into the leadership.
“It’s whether Andy Burnham is obliged to run on an anti-Starmer ticket. That’s obligatory.”
He added: “This is life or death, and Labour, without working class affection, is just a liberal democratic, progressive party. Labour is in a fight for its soul. Actually, this is what’s going on, its very identity.
“At the moment, Keir Starmer represents Labour, and they think that we’re just a procedural bunch of human rights lawyers. It’s really awful. So this is life and death for Burnham. This is life and death for Labour, and this is his interview for the leadership. If he passes this test, he sails through.”
On Wes Streeting’s comments on nationalism in his resignation letter, Lord Glasman said: “It’s really disgusting, I completely share that. I’m a patriot. My party was a sovereigntist, patriotic party until around 1997. If you look at Ernest Bevin, Peter Shore, or Clement Attlee, no one questioned Labour’s patriotism until then, but neither did Labour denigrate its opponents.
“I’m a patriot for Britain. I’m also for England. Our traditions of common law, this combination of democracy and monarchy, the idea of right order. What Wes Streeting did just now was completely throw away his possibilities of being a credible prime minister.
“This was a really born again New Labour speech.”
