ANDY BURNHAM will be allowed to run for Parliament, Labour deputy leader Lucy Powell told the FBU conference today.

Ms Powell — the only member of a Labour national executive panel who voted in favour of letting Mr Burnham stand in the February Gorton & Denton by-election, which the Greens won after the popular Manchester mayor was blocked — said: “I’ve got it on good authority there’s going to be absolutely no attempt to stop him” a second time.

Mr Burnham has indicated a wish to return to the Commons with the undisguised intention of making a bid to be prime minister, and a path has opened up for him to do so in the Makerfield constituency in north-west England.

Sitting MP Josh Simons, himself battling scandal over his reported snooping on and smearing of critical journalists on behalf of Labour Together, has said he will step aside, triggering a by-election.

But winning that is not a foregone conclusion and Ms Powell said even if Mr Burnham was selected to contest it it would be a “tough by-election for us to win against Reform,” which beat Labour comfortably across the constituency in the local elections.

New polling by Britain Predicts for the New Statesman suggests an “Andy Burnham effect” based on his relative popularity as mayor, and the likelihood his election could mean curtains for Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer, would give him a narrow lead over Reform, but that party’s leader Nigel Farage has vowed to “throw everything” at the by-election.

Ms Powell said Labour would need the help of FBU members and those of other affiliated unions to win the campaign.

It could not be done by tacking right, she warned, saying: “We might have lost more seats to Reform but we lost more voters to parties to our left.”

She called on Labour to recognise the consistent demand for change expressed by an electorate that voted for Brexit, Boris Johnson and then her own party in short order, and to end a set-up where “ordinary people pay the price while the wealthy get off scot-free, where bankers continue to get bonuses while … living standards fall.”