Andy Burnham’s secret plot to get to No 10

Andy Burnham’s chief lieutenant claimed in an interview that he had been planning for a year to take over from Sir Keir Starmer.

The revelation, made in an interview by former transport minister Louise Haigh with the BBC’s Nick Robinson, came as Labor MPs lined up in parliament to nominate Mr Burnham for the Labor leadership.

With no other candidate expected to be nominated after former defense minister Al Carns announced he would not run, Mr Burnham is expected to be announced as the new Labor leader on 17 July and appointed to replace Sir Keir as Prime Minister on 20 July.

But in his interview without borders Political Thought Ms Haigh also revealed in the podcast the “sexist” culture in Starmer’s government, which has seen leading women like herself targeted with horrific briefings.

Ms Haigh, who was forced to resign over a previous mobile phone conviction, repeated complaints previously made by education secretary Bridget Phillipson and culture secretary Lisa Nandy that a “boys’ club” was being set up in the heart of Downing Street.

As Mr Burnham moves to nominate himself as the next Labor leader, hoping for a “third time lucky” attempt following failures in 2010 and 2015, 322 Labor MPs have published their nomination forms for him in X.

But although Ms Haigh’s spokesman later denied this, she appeared to admit she had been plotting to replace Sir Keir while he was mayor of Greater Manchester for at least a year.

He said: “He’s been thinking about it for at least the last year and he’s definitely been planning it.”

But given the relief felt by many MPs at the end of Sir Keir’s time in charge of the party, Keir has focused on the sexism he claims exists in a series of explosive revelations.

Ms Haigh, who is at the center of the prime minister’s march to No 10, hit out at attacks by a “men’s group” on former Deputy Chancellor Angela Rayner and cabinet ministers Bridget Phillipson and Lisa Nandy.

He told the BBC Political Thought podcast: “The idea that there isn’t a group of men around the government who are deliberately mistreating women is just fantasy.”

The former transport secretary also revealed Sir Keir had not spoken to him since he was forced to resign from his cabinet, as he accused his administration of trying to “underthrow my character” after he left.

Ms Haigh pulled no punches as Sir Keir sought to secure his “legacy” as Prime Minister in his final few days in office.

Angela, who said her former chief of staff Morgan McSweeney had denied there was a “boys’ club” at No 10, said Ms Philipson and Ms Nandy “were the victims of incredibly sexist and unpleasant press briefings, as I have made clear”. [Rayner] to have.”

“You only had to open the newspapers most days to read the disgusting briefing that took place, the awful way they talked about our colleagues to journalists,” he said.

He added that the treatment of Sir Keir’s first chief of staff Sue Gray was “absolutely disgraceful”.

Mr McSweeney denied the accusations while on the same podcast last week.

But this is not the first time Starmer’s government has been accused of sexism.

In February, Ms Nandy lashed out, saying Labor Party briefings were “riddled with misogyny”.

Ms Haigh said Mr Burnham was trying to move away from the so-called “boys’ club” culture that many female MPs complained about in Sir Keir’s No 10 operation.

The Sheffield Heeley MP resigned as transport secretary in 2024 after it was revealed he had pleaded guilty to falsely reporting to police that a work mobile phone had been stolen in 2013.

He told the podcast that he had signed a statement saying Downing Street had previously explained the matter to Sir Keir. But then Mr. McSweeney called and asked for his resignation.

“I had to press hard to even talk to Keir, and he didn’t want to have that conversation himself, and both Morgan and him were saying, ‘Well, additional information has come out,’ but neither of them ever told me what that additional information was.

“And then they did it again. And it was painful because they could have said, ‘Look, these headlines suck, and it won’t be nice if you ignore them.’

“And it wasn’t. And honestly, I would have accepted it and left on that basis because I didn’t particularly want to leave them behind. It was embarrassing and not pleasant to go through.”

“But pretending I hadn’t told him, and briefing him so consistently and so relentlessly over the next few weeks was a deliberate attempt to break my character.”

He said he told Sir Keir about the fraud crime while Labor was still in opposition, and Sir Keir promoted him several times after that.

But he added that he had not had “a single personal conversation” with her since he left the cabinet.

“I’ve had to fire people throughout my political career, and you don’t need to do it in a way that’s so obviously hurtful.”

Following the interview, Ms Haigh’s spokesman denied there had been plans for more than a year to replace Sir Keir with Mr Burnham.

The spokesman said: “Louise and many of her colleagues were clearly concerned about forced errors and the government’s inability to communicate its achievements – this is well documented – so she is proud to have helped Andy create a plan to reconnect with working people.

“To say that talks to rebuild the Labor Party were a year-long plot to bring down the Prime Minister was obviously not what he said.”