Andy Burnham urges Labour to end ‘culture of fear’ in party and tells Starmer to 'go further'

The Mayor of Greater Manchester, who has refused to rule out a return to Westminster or a tilt at the leadership, dodged questions from LBC at a Labour conference fringe event about whether he backed the Prime Minister.

Mr Burnham told the Labour for Proportional Representation event that he “wants this Government to be a success” and had spent all summer trying to help “strengthen the Hillsborough law” by working behind the scenes.

He also warned the Government not to underestimate the “peril” the party faces as he teed up the next election as a huge fight between Labour and Reform UK.

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Mr Burnham refused to repeat his comments that the Government were “in hoc to the bond markets”, saying that it was only by working together that they could “stop looking over our shoulder to bond markets”

He told the fringe event on Sunday that he had “launched a debate on our direction” while insisting he did want to see the Labour Party succeed.

The mayor hit out at situations where party members were suspended for liking other party’s tweets or losing the whip for voting for moves to reinstate the two-child benefit cap.

He said: “If that is the way we are doing things, where debate is being closed down, that to me is what we’ve got to change."

Mr Burnham then slapped down demands for “simplistic statements of loyalty” as people asked whether he still backed Sir Keir Starmer.

He refused to speak to media on his way out of the event, and would only say that “yes” Everton would win tomorrow, adding: “That’s the one question I will answer!"

Mr Burnham is rumoured to be mulling a tilt at the Labour leadership with recent interventions seen as his pitch for Downing Street.

In a recent interview, Mr Burnham proposed a 50p top rate of income tax and a tax cut for lower earners.

In response, the Prime Minister appeared to attack his potential leadership rival’s economic agenda by drawing parallels with Liz Truss, adding that he is “not prepared to let a Labour government ever inflict that harm on working people”.

Sir Keir has insisted he will “lead from the front” into the next general election at the party’s annual conference in Liverpool this weekend.

"I’m not going to get drawn in to commenting on the personal ambitions of the mayor, but I do want to be really clear about our fiscal rules because economic stability is the foundation stone of this Government," he said.