News / Politics
Darren Jones: ‘Andy Burnham is going to be the next prime minister’
Darren Jones has ruled himself out from running to be the next Labour leader, removing one potential obstacle from Andy Burnham’s journey to Downing Street.
The Bristol North West MP had been tipped to challenge Burnham in order to prevent the former mayor of Greater Manchester becoming prime minister unopposed.
But on Wednesday morning, Jones said that a leadership contest would be of little benefit to the Labour Party or the UK and backed Burnham for PM.
“Andy Burnham is going to be the next prime minister and if there was a contest of Labour Party members, he would win,” Jones told Sky News.
The chief secretary to the prime minister said he knows of around 100 Labour MPs who had expressed concern about the lack of a leadership contest or were worried about Burnham’s economic policies.
Jones told Beth Rigby that he has spoken to Burnham who he says he has known “for a long time” having worked closely when Jones was chief secretary at the Treasury.
“My last conversation with Andy Burnham was to say, ‘Look, MPs are asking me to stand. I’m not going to but they’re asking me to stand for a reason. And that’s because they want you to set out more about your economic policy.’
“We talked then a lot about what he was thinking on the economy and what my thoughts were on that and some of the potential ways forward for the new government.”
Jones said it was a “reassuring” conversation which did not include talk of a job in Burnham’s future cabinet.
Jones also revealed that in a meeting with Keir Starmer, the current prime minister told him that this may be the end of Starmer’s political journey “but I don’t want it to be the end of yours and you should do whatever you see fit in order to keep doing the work you want to do”.
Main photo: Sky News
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