Keir Starmer Branded a Coward by John McDonnell Amid Deepening Labour Revolt

The phone calls started before dawn. Labour backbenchers, usually bound by party discipline and the understanding that public dissent can end a political career, were breaking ranks with unusual ferocity. By Sunday evening, roughly 80 of them — enough to trigger a formal leadership challenge — had quietly signed a private letter of condemnation. The reason was simple, brutal and entirely self-inflicted: Keir Starmer had blocked Andy Burnham from standing in the Gorton and Denton by-election, and his own party was furious.

What began as an attempt to control a dangerous rival had metamorphosed, within hours, into a full-blown mutiny that threatens the Prime Minister's grip on power. The irony would be almost comedic if the stakes weren't so high.

When Strategic Calculation Meets Political Catastrophe

Burnham, the Mayor of Greater Manchester and a perennial favourite among Labour's grassroots, had expressed his intention to stand for the safe Labour seat vacated by Andrew Gwynne's resignation. To anyone paying attention, it was clear what was really happening: Burnham was laying the groundwork for a return to parliament, from where he could mount a credible challenge to Starmer's leadership. The Labour leader and his advisers understood this perfectly, which is why they could not allow it to happen.

On Sunday morning, a ten-strong subgroup of Labour's National Executive Committee convened to make the decision. Chaired by Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood and including deputy leader Lucy Powell and Cabinet minister Ed Miliband — both of whom had publicly suggested at a London conference the previous day that the decision should be left to party members — the committee voted against Burnham's candidacy.

The NEC cited concerns about the financial cost of running a simultaneous mayoral by-election in Greater Manchester while the party was juggling crucial local elections, Welsh Senedd contests and Scottish Parliament votes scheduled for May. On paper, it was a reasonable justification for an unreasonable act.

Downing Street simultaneously announced that the by-election would take place on Feb. 26 — the earliest date allowable under electoral law. The apparent logic was to avoid a protracted campaign that polling suggested Labour would struggle to win, while denying Burnham the months he would need to rebuild his profile and position himself as a viable alternative to Starmer.

Control through expediency. It was a move calculated to smother ambition before it could flourish. What it actually did was ignite fury.

Why Starmer's Gambit Has Backfired

Kim Johnson, a Labour backbencher of modest profile but strong principle, did what few MPs ordinarily dare to do. She spoke publicly — and with devastating clarity. 'This just plays into the level of factionalism that has been inherent in this party for too long, and it has to stop,' she told Times Radio. 'And Keir Starmer now needs to consider his own position as leader of this party.'

But Johnson's rebuke, however sharp, paled beside the intervention from John McDonnell, the former shadow chancellor whose presence still carries weight in certain quarters of the Labour movement. McDonnell did not mince words. 'Do not underestimate the depth of anger people will feel about this disgusting decision,' he said. 'If you think it strengthens you, I tell you it will simply hasten your demise.

You could have shown magnanimous leadership, but instead it's cowardice. 'The accusation of cowardice, levelled by a senior figure Starmer had hoped to marginalise, crystallised the growing sense that the Labour leader was not exercising leadership — he was practising survival politics at its basest.

This was not a Labour leader confident enough to face down a rival through the normal mechanisms of party democracy. This was a leader so fearful of being challenged that he had rigged the game.

The Greater Manchester Mayor Who Became a Symbol

Burnham himself, displaying the kind of dignified restraint that clearly irks Starmer's operation, announced his candidacy on Saturday with a statement that seemed almost designed to highlight the contrast between his moral clarity and the party leadership's backroom manoeuvring.

'The by-election is the front line of a fight against a brand of politics that seeks to pit people against each other,' he said. 'I owe it to a city that has given me so much to lead it from the front, despite the risks involved.'

Those words — sincere, measured and entirely untainted by the cynicism swirling around party headquarters — only deepened the sense that Starmer had got this spectacularly wrong. By attempting to protect himself from a rival, the Labour leader had inadvertently positioned that rival as the defender of democratic principle.

The question now is not whether Starmer faces pressure to resign, but when. The machinery of removal is no longer theoretical. It exists, it is operational, and it is growing restless.

A Prime Minister elected on promises of renewal and stability has instead delivered control through fear. His own party is beginning to wonder if that is a price worth paying.