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Andy Burnham is not “entitled” to a seat in parliament, Harriet Harman has said.
Speaking to Sky News’ political editor Beth Rigby on the Electoral Dysfunction podcast, the Labour peer criticised Mr Burnham’s reaction to being blocked from standing in the upcoming Gorton and Denton by-election.
Politics Live: Ex-home secretary Suella Braverman defects from Tories to Reform UK
She said: “ I would say to Andy Burnham, now look, Andy, you are not the candidate, although obviously you did want to be the candidate, but you are not. The best interest of the party now and everybody is to get on and help win the by-election.
“And when he put at the end of his tweet, ‘you would think that over 30 years of service would count for something, but sadly not’ that smacked to me of entitlement. And he’s given 30 years of service. But it ought to be because he believes in it, because it’s a cause, not because he’s gonna get something back.
“It doesn’t matter how many years you’ve served, nobody in the party is entitled to anything. It’s our privilege to serve and put ourselves forward. And if we don’t get selected for one thing or another, we just do something else good in the party. So I think that that was not a good tone in that tweet, and I think he needs to kind of change his tone, be part of the team.”
She added: “No one is bigger than the party. The party leader is Keir Starmer and we’ve got elections that lie ahead of us, this by-election and then elections throughout the country in May.”
As the Mayor of Greater Manchester, Mr Burnham needed permission from Labour’s ruling National Executive Committee (NEC) to stand in the by-election, which was refused on Sunday.
Mr Burnham’s return to Westminster was seen by many as a potential challenge to Sir Keir Starmer’s leadership.
A party statement said the reason behind the decision was the cost of running the campaigns for both a parliamentary seat and a Manchester mayoralty by-election.
Also on the Electoral Dysfunction podcast, former leader of the Scottish Conservatives Ruth Davidson said Suella Braverman’s defection to Reform UK won’t cause “as many ripples” as Robert Jenrick because it was expected.
She said: “Wasn’t she on defection watch anyway, cause her husband has been a pretty big leading light in Reform for a while. And she’s not looked kinda happy or comfortable for a while?
“ In an odd sense, I don’t think this will make as many ripples as Jenrick. It’ll almost be a kind of one of those stories in the same way as Andrew Rossindale.
“It’s almost a ‘and finally’. And if I’m honest now, that might be a bad symptom because it’s now happened so often that it is just an and finally.”
