Sir Keir Starmer is looking good for a long spell as the leader of the Labour Party with the former Director of Public Prosecutions now as short as 4/11 to be the Next Prime Minister. He won’t lead the party forever though and we take a look at the potential candidates who could follow him, whenever he leaves the post…
When talking about the Next Leader of the Labour Party, everything starts with a man who isn’t a current MP. For years people have been talking about whether Andy Burnham would step back into the Westminster bubble with an eye on taking the top job within his party.
Burnham currently has the job of Mayor of Greater Manchester and will hold that position until at least 2024. At that point will come the crossroads of whether to run again (if he did, he’d all but certainly win) but should he choose not to and find a safe seat for the next General Election, he’d immediately become the overwhelming favourite to succeed Starmer whenever he steps down. The 9/2 price is surely only that big due to the question mark surrounding whether he chooses to seek a return to the parliamentary party.
If you are looking to back someone already in situ on the opposition benches at Westminster then we make the current Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer a 6/1 choice. Rachel Reeves has slowly been working her way up the betting market and is in a good position to become the first female leader of the party. The Tories, Lib Dems, Green Party, SNP and Plaid Cymru have all had women lead their respective parties and there is certainly a groundswell of opinion that it was high time Labour followed suit.
Five of the top seven in the betting are women with Lisa Nandy and Angela Rayner both priced up at 9/1 with Yvette Cooper (who is the best leader they’ve never had) still hanging around at 10/1. The MP for Normanton, Pontefract & Castleford ran for leader when Jeremy Corbyn ran and is one of the smartest people in the chamber and is an excellent speaker. In my mind, she would be a fantastic leader of the party but whether she still has that ambition is unknown. Bridget Phillipson is at 16/1.
The only man other than Andy Burnham shorter than 16/1 is Wes Streeting. The MP for Ilford North is priced up as the 8/1 third-favourite and I struggle to see it myself. If it isn’t Andy Burnham, who already has significant name recognition and is relatively popular, then surely the Labour Party will finally appoint a woman to the top job. They have several outstanding candidates (led by Cooper in my opinion) and I doubt they could go wrong with either Burnham or Cooper.
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