ANDY BURNHAM is shaking up the debate in the Labour Party from his perch in Manchester, where he serves as metro mayor or, as some admirers style him “prime minister of the north.”

It now seems clear that he would like to succeed Sir Keir Starmer as party leader and, hence, prime minister of the whole country. Indeed, Burnham has stood twice for the party’s top job twice before and was briefly front-runner in the 2015 contest before he was swept aside by the tide of enthusiasm for Jeremy Corbyn.

In that contest he blundered by tacking to the right, launching his campaign in the City of London to prove his pro-business credentials and declining to take funding from supportive trade unions. He was then under the influence of some of the worst elements in Labour’s “Brownite” faction.

Burnham has since repented of that mistake. When the Parliamentary Labour Party mounted its failed coup against Corbyn in 2016, he was then shadow home secretary. He was one of the very few non-Corbynites in the shadow team who did not resign in an effort to force the leader out.

He shortly after left Westminster for the job in Manchester, to which he has been re-elected twice with very comfortable majorities. He has made the most of the role as a spokesman for the north of England more generally, demanding investment and improvements in services.

This record has boosted his standing, already raised by his championing of the cause of the Hillsborough 97.

He has also emerged as a spokesman for Labour’s beleaguered soft left, launching the Mainstream organisation with others to develop a critique of the Starmer government’s wretched economic and social policies.

That he is now spoken of as a left alternative to the Prime Minister is to some extent chance. He occupies the place held until a few weeks ago by Angela Rayner, who was clearly in the best position to succeed Starmer when he falls by the political wayside.

Her resignation because of breaches of the ministerial code created an unexpected vacancy which Burnham seeks to fill. To pose any threat to Starmer, however, he must first return to the Commons. That requires winning a by-election — presumably within Greater Manchester — and whether or when a vacancy will occur is unclear.

That this discussion is happening at all is testimony above all to Starmer’s disastrous record in office, which has alienated millions of Labour voters and driven Labour’s polling down to unprecedented lows, opening the way to a far-right Reform government.

A challenge to Tony Blair in 1998 would, alas, have been inconceivable, but the party is being driven to desperation by its leader’s right-wing orientation and political ineptness.

Many in the party will therefore find Burnham’s pitch attractive. He stands for an extension of public control over services, higher taxation of the rich and a less deferential attitude to Donald Trump, among other positions.

He also — and this is key — wants to see an end to the authoritarianism and suffocation of party democracy which has characterised the leadership of Starmer and his consigliere Morgan McSweeney.

However, there are significant grounds for caution. Burnham voted for the Iraq war in 2003 when more than 140 of his PLP colleagues did not. He sought to block inquiries into that disaster. He was a generally uncomplaining member of the New Labour regime.

His open trailing of his coat has certainly excited Labour interest. Unions and party members should subject him to more detailed scrutiny as to how he would refloat the government’s fast-sinking ship and save Britain from the far right.