Future Outlook for the Labour Party

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And I have hot footed it to the studio from Downing Street where I have just witnessed Kir Starmer resigning as the prime minister, the sixth British Prime Minister to resign in ten years , meaning we're soon going to be on to our seventh prime minister and the idea of it being Andy Burnham is now not looking like a question mark, but it's looking like a punctuation point on Kir Starmer's demise. It looks like Andy Burnham is a shoeing now to become the next PM. What a whirlwind it's been. And I know that we said last week you have to wait for our members episode tomorrow to get an update on politics , but we cannot have Harriet Harmon today reacting to what has happened because you, Harriet, are Kir Stahmer's advisor on women and girls and you were the one that on Friday said to us The herd has moved and it is stampeding and how right you were. So I've just got to ask you, Harriet, how were you feeling watching the Prime Minister resigned today? Well, it's brutal, isn't it? The moving van is at the back door of Downing Street for Kirsdama and at the front door of Downing Street for Andy Burnham . And it's also a shock in a way because even though we knew it was inevitable after those terrible results in the local elections, Scottish and Welsh elections after, John Heley's devastating resignation and after the overwhelming election of Andy Burnham, even though it was inevitable, even though Kiris Dahmer's position clearly wasn't sustainable, it still feels like a shock to see the Prime Minister resigned. He hasn't even reached two years in number ten Downing Street. But I think what I'm detecting is that although people are really disappointed, MPs are' so disappointed . They didn't want their government elected after fourteen years of the Conservatives to not succeed. They wanted it to succeed. And although they are very dismayed, they're actually looking ahead now. I mean, it is incredible how things p ivot so quickly. They're disappointed for Kirstahmer, disappointed that the two years haven't been more successful, but they are looking to the future anxious but very determined, I would say. It was a bit of a shocking that we kind of knew it was coming , but number ten went so dark the weekend . He went to checkers. We didn't know what was going on. He was with his wife, Vick and the kids, even some of his closest allies , either the phones went dead so they stopped responding, or a few of them said to me they genuinely didn't know what was going on. Was that what it was like at your end as well, Harriet? Well, I think so, although we knew ultimately what would happen , it was clearly a wrench for him to give it up. And he did leave it till the very last minute, didn't he? Monday morning . And what was the inevitable pressure was Andy Burnham was getting on that train in Manchester, going to be arriving at Euston and then coming into the House of Commons . And what happens is when you win in a bielection, you have to walk down the center of the House of Commons. You take three paces, you bow, you walk three more paces and bow and your party leader is sitting on the front bench having to lead the cheers for you to come in. And all of that on TV, that sort of ceremony, I mean Kir,stah could not possibly have got through Monday on that basis, but he left it till first thing on Monday morning. I just want to take you back to that moment. I woke up at four thirty in the morning like, a juror cell bar I was like pink, I was like a mere cat. I was like, I'm fully awake. I'm fully engaged. I checked my phone. I'd had a couple of messages overnight. I thought I'd need to get to number ten and then the podium comes out. It was very odd in that it all happened very quickly. There wasn't much buildup . And then Outty came at half nine . Quite a short speech, a very emotional speech. I mean, when he talked about the children and his wife Vic, he was struggling not to cry and Vic was standing there and I looked over to her when he was talking about her and she was fighting back the tears as well. How did you feel Harriet watching speech . Well, you know, politics is really tough and I would have wanted him to be successful, but you know, politics is about the reality of the situation. And I was thinking that there really were three reasons why he fail ed. Firstly, his own mistakes, things that he got wrong, that he did, that he didn't do. Secondly, the overwhelming public disapproval, and thirdly, the fear of Nigel Farage. I think he could have survived with two of those, but he couldn't survive with all of three of those. Such a good point. Harriet, what you've really just sort of like my little brain's pinged on that because what you said about the fear of Farage . One of Starmer's allies that I think was talking to him over the weekend and has subsequently having not answered my calls has Family this morning said that they thought that Kir Stahmer kind of knew that he was done when the result came in , even though he went on the cameras and said he would fight on because of the scale of the victory. And when I was talking to another source over the weekend and I wrote about this for the Sky News website. They said to me that what had changed for Starmer was the scale of the victory was such against reform that any wavering MPs had moved into the Burnham Column because they were looking at the Manchester Mayor race and worrying about that, but they were also looking to the May elections next year and contemplating wipeout of a potentially a third more of Labour's council seats because Farage would just take labour territory under a Kirstama government and they just couldn't stomach the idea of giving local govern ment, councils, councillors , labor heartland territory over to Nigel Farage . And then in Andy Burnham, the scale of the victory made them feel like he could save them . And so they just, as you said, Harry, it was spot on what you said, the stampede. They just moved. I think that labour MP's have had two things in their minds. One is an absolute pathological fear of how history would judge them as individuals if they were part of the parliamentary Labour Party that handed over the country to Nigel Farage . But there was also the sense after that by election in Makerfield that that Andy Burnham was like a reform voter whisperer , that he basically could lead the coalition of anti reform voters . I did feel it up in Makerfield. When I went to the campaign headquarters up in the constituency when I went to the rally , there was a sort of feeling around Burnham that Labour can win again. Obviously Labour wants to win again, it wants to be empower. Many things that Labour wants to do can't be done in one term, you need a second term. But it's not just about labour keeping in power . It's labour stopping the country going in a very bad direction. I think sometimes it sounds like and Kirstama himself said , people think I can't win the next general election. And people watching that might think why are you bothered about that? Isn't your job to be governing now, not worrying about whether you're going to win the next general election? But that was the problem, the fear that if we didn't have somebody who could actually win the next general election, there was a very ugly alternative . And actually, there are people that are loyal to Starmer that have said to me today that they think the party will look back and regret the decision they've made today, the parliamentary party that actually there were green shoots in terms of the Starmer administration. They're swapping the prime minister and they've still got three years to go . It was interesting at Downing Street this morning. Lord Herman came out, David Lami came out, Jenny Chapman came out. That is the Attorney General, the most senior legal brain in the government. David Lami's obviously the Deputy Prime Minister Justice Secretary and Baroness Chapman is one of Kirstahmer's oldest allies. Herma said that he thought the speech was a moment of extraordinary dignity from the Prime Minister , that he was a fighter , but he put the country first and he decided that fighting on would not serve the party. Jenny Chapman said it was a tough day , but there's important work for the country, that the party needs to pull together and that he made the choice that was the right choice for him. It was the only choice he could make . He understood the political reality . I mean , how do you think St almer will be remembered ? Well, I think he'll be remembered as the person who became leader of the Labour Party at a time when people said it was more or less finished. And he did rebuild it, as he said, finan cially, politically and morally, he did rebuild the party and make it fit for government. And he has laid some foundations and things are progressing on immigration, on the NHS and the economy, on a number of fronts he's made progress, particularly on the international stage . And that's going to be something for Andy Burnham to consider because he'll have a choice. Either he can say everything was wrong under Kirstah, I'm going to do things completely differently. Or he could say Kirstah made a good start, but I'm going to build on it and step up on the pace of change. And there's also a choice for Kirstahmer's diehard supporters. They can either sit back and hope Andy Burnham fails or they can undermine him, or they can actually hope and work for him to succeed on the basis that Kirstahmer will then be seen as having laid the foundations for Andy Burnham's success. Yeah, I mean, let's come on to that because there's a question isn't there about whether or not the party now has a divisive leadership campaign. Is there a coronation for Andy Burnham? So telling that this morning , a couple of hours after the Prime Minister resigned, Wes Streeting came out and said I am not going to challenge Andy Burnham . So the big challenger has removed himself from the race. As I understand it, they had a conversation on Friday. I think they also spoke yesterday. So whether there's a deal that's been done, I don't know. Wes Street and people say there have been no job offers and there's not a deal, just Wes Street in thinks this is better for the country. A few people in Burnham's camp have said to me again that they think it's because doesn't have the numbers to stand. He'd need eighty one people to challenge . But it does look Harrot, like it could be a coronation, not a contest. This is Justin that's message does and I'm sure he'd like you to answer this, Harriet. He says, Street ins ane, how do they sell no contest to us? And then we also had this from Andy Harriet. He says, I'm quite frankly indignant that someone could have a coronation without documenting how they are qualified. I think Justin and Andy have good points. Don't you, Harriet? I'm sure that's not Andy Burnham there that message. Another Andy , another Andy. I mean , there's not going to be a contest. I think that's evident . So it's a really hypothetical question, should there have been a contest or shouldn't there? I mean a careful path has to be trodden. On the one hand, it is good for people to be contested, for them to be challenged, to get their thoughts in order. So when they come in, they really know what it is that they are planning to do and they've been challenged and they're absolutely clear and robust on the one hand. But on the other hand, you don't want to descend into an internal party discussion which excludes everybody who aren't party members. So I think what's going to happen, there's going to be no contest. And when it comes to july the sixteenth, when nominations close, they will close and the only person having been nominated will be Andy Burnham . But what there does need to be after july the sixteenth when he is elected unopposed , he then needs to demonstrate that in the interim period between now and the sixteenth of july , that he has won the confidence of the overwhelming majority of the parliamentary Labour Party. And what he is doing from today is meeting groups of MPs, meeting them, meeting them, meeting them , in order to set out to them his program in order to win their confidence. And I think he'll need to set out his programme as well to the public because he hasn't been able to set out his big picture for the future of Britain, what he thinks about Britain's role in the world, what he thinks about major economic issues , he will need to set all of those out now. So we're in for an important period, but he's going to need to keep up the momentum. He's got amazing momentum from that dilection and he's going to need to keep up the pace . I want to ask you Luke's questions. Well, honestly, these listener questions are better than my questions, which is a little bit challenging since I am paid to think of questions, but you are absolutely smashing it out of the park. This is Luke. He says , I'm not a labour voter, but when I look at Burnham, other than arguably being a better communicator, that alone doesn't seem like enough of a reason. What would he actually do differently? And this is what someone in the st armer camp said to me the other day, Howard, they went, You can't govern on vibes . That is a serious challenge, isn't it? Andy Burnham, what is he going to do differently? If he breaks the manifesto, he needs to seek a mandate from the country . Is it all going to be a lot of change? I'm going to do things differently. And in the end he disappoints . It's not just vibe, although there is a lot of vibe, it's the breadth of his appeal that he's putting forward. I mean, it's very clever, isn't it to talk about business friendly socialism? That gives a breadth of appeal. If you looked at how he talked to people in that he didn't be criticizing reform as racist and divisive and populist and dangerous . What he did is speak to those voters , make them feel that he understood them and give them hope . And leadership is important. When the country faces difficulties, we've got Trump going rogue, we've got a difficult economic inheritance. You need to feel confident in the leadership. And I think people want a bit of that again . Okay, if there's one thing you'd like Andy Burnham to do when he does become, if he does become Prime Minister in terms of policy that you think would ring in some of these changes, what would it be? Harriet? That's quite a big question, that is it? That is. But he's got to think about how our economic policy is working out , how he interprets the fiscal rules, what about the mandate for the Bank of England , he's got to think about how we get investment in because investment is key to growth and growth is key to prosperity for people's living standards and public services. So he's gotten a very great, many difficult decisions . He will get a lot of good advice . And I don't detect really, actually, although lots of MPs are feeling very shocked. I don't feel any buyer's remorse. And people are not saying, Oh my goodness, me , what have we done? We knew he had to go, but oh my goodness, did we do the right thing? I don't feel that at all. But Harris, you've worked with Andy Burnham in the past. No buyer's remorse now, but do you fe thatar in a few months time there could be buyer's remorse that all this hope of labour's success is pinned on one man? One man that hasn't been in Westminster for nine years, one man that hasn't served in government for a long time . Well, I think in that is one of his strengths because he's a novelty now . He's a new face, he's a fresh face running the country , but he's also got experience because he's been in the cabinet . So experience and novelty but he's not tainted by this most recent cabinet's travails . So I'm very hopeful when I was deputy leader and in the cabinet and Andy Berner was in the cabinet as well. And he was as people know, he was health secretary, but he was also culture media and sports secretary. You know, he didn't make a huge impact on me until it came to the Hillsborough issue . And then I saw a real determination that he really stood for something . This was an unpopular issue to be constantly raising in the cabinet . And I also think since he 's been mayor, he is not the same person who is in cabinet. He has massively grown in experience . And I think the fact that he's tried twice in contest to be leader and failed, sometimes people sneer at that and say , Oh, well he's a loser. He tried twice, but I think it shows that he's got determination and grit. He knows what he stands for. He believes in himself. He's got confidence. So even though he gets two knockbacks, he's ready to go again. I mean, just imagine stepping into Andy Burnham's shoes . He thought he was down and out after he got blocked in Gordon and Denton. He then gets this seat Maker field when the incumbent MP Josh Simons decides to stand down to try and allow Andy Burnham to win that in order to come back to Westminster . And in the space of seventy two hours he is now looking at the prospect of becomings Prime Minister in three and a half weeks. I mean, life comes at you fast when you're Andy Burnham It does and that's why he has got to have good people around him , people with good moral values , decent people , because if he makes mistakes, well inevitably that will happen . But there mustn't be any badness around. He's got to have people of principles. Talking about good people around him, Harriet, Phi's message does, and Fee says Andy needs Harriet as an advisor, Harriet. What'd you say? Honestly, I really don't think he does . I think he's done pretty well to get himself into the Prime Minister ship, which he will within less than a month . And I think that he's got a lot of very good people around him . But actually , until such time as I'm fired , I'm still the Prime Minister's adviser on women and girls, so hello Andy, when you get into the Prime Minister's office you'll have to decide whether to keep me on or fire me . That is a mega whiz through today's news and there's so much more to discuss . So this is your reminder that we're going to have another episode with Ruth and Jess tomorrow. That's a member's only one. And so hopefully we'll have a bit more from Jess about what's going on with Wes Street in because obviously they are close friends and colleagues