Sir Tony Blair says he wants to see Burnham win Makerfield and return as MP

Sir Tony Blair has said he wants to see Andy Burnham return to Parliament, but urged Labour MPs to “force people to say where they stand” before getting behind a change in leader.

The Greater Manchester Mayor is running as Labour’s candidate in the Makerfield by-election and is widely expected to mount a leadership challenge to Sir Keir Starmer if he wins.

Former Labour prime minister Sir Tony stopped short of endorsing any potential challenger to Sir Keir and has cautioned the party against forcing him out without having a proper policy agenda to follow him, in an essay criticising the Government’s time in office.

Asked whether he would advise Labour MPs to back former health secretary Wes Streeting or Mr Burnham to succeed Sir Keir as party leader, Sir Tony told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “My advice is, choose your direction first and make sure that before you have any leadership change, you make all the candidates set out in detail their policy, what the Government’s got right, what it’s got wrong, what we should do differently.”

He added: “I hope Andy wins Makerfield, I think he’s a great guy, I want to see him in Parliament.”

But he questioned what Mr Burnham meant in a speech earlier this month where he spoke of Britain being “on the wrong path” for 40 years and that potential leaders should be forced to set out their stances clearly.

He said: “But you know, when he does this thing about 40 years of wasted… I mean, OK, and what, nothing good happened in that period of Thatcher with the business community, or New Labour?

“I don’t think he really means that, but what I’m saying, if you’re going to change leader, you’ve really got to force people to say where they stand, because otherwise you’ll be in what I think was always a problem for Keir – and I’ll be very honest about this, and I like him and I wish him well – but when we switched from that Corbyn agenda, there wasn’t enough explanation.

“Not as to why Corbyn was an election loser, that was pretty obvious, but why the whole agenda was wrong.

“You have to explain to people why it’s wrong if you want to lead the party in the future in a coherent way.”

Minister Dan Tomlinson said Sir Tony was right to call on Labour to avoid a personality contest but disputed the former premier’s framing of some of the party’s challenges.

The Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury told Times Radio: “He’s right that we shouldn’t descend into a contest of personalities. We need to focus on the issues and the substance.

“I agree with him that we need to focus on reforming our domestic economy rather than rushing to change relationships with the EU. I think the red lines in our manifesto around single market, customs union (are) really important.”

The Makerfield by-election is due to take place on June 18 and is expected to be a tight race between Labour and Reform UK.

Nigel Farage’s party has put forward Robert Kenyon, a plumber who came second in the seat in the 2024 general election.

A recent Survation opinion poll suggested Mr Burnham has a lead of just three percentage points over him.

On Tuesday evening, 14 candidates were confirmed as standing in the by-election, including Conservative candidate Michael Winstanley and Sarah Wakefield for the Green Party.