UK special election could topple Starmer: 5 key players and where they stand on Israel

LONDON — It has been called the most consequential special election Britain has seen in the last century. In the early hours of today, voters in the northwest England constituency of Makerfield chose Andy Burnham to be their next member of parliament.

They may well also have picked the country’s next prime minister.

Burnham, the mayor of Greater Manchester, has made it clear that if he wins Makerfield, he will challenge Keir Starmer for the leadership of the governing Labour Party.

Less than two years after leading Labour to a landslide general election win, the prime minister — deeply unpopular in the polls and having suffered a humiliating pounding in last month’s local government and Scottish and Welsh parliamentary elections — is fighting for his political life.

Starmer’s position has been on the rocks since a spate of ministerial resignations last month and calls by over 100 of his backbench MPs for him to quit. Burnham reportedly hopes for a “coronation” by which the prime minister will agree to an orderly transition and Labour MPs will fall in behind him. But events may prove much messier: Starmer is apparently determined to fight any challenge and a leadership election may see others enter the ring.

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So who are some of the key players in the drama engulfing Britain’s government? And what are their stances on Israel and issues of Jewish concern?

Andy Burnham: ‘King of the North’

Burnham, a Cabinet minister in the last Labour government, left parliament in 2017 to become mayor of the Greater Manchester region. He’s proved adept at the job and hugely popular, winning re-election in 2024 with 63 percent of the vote. As Labour’s political fortunes have darkened since taking office in 2024, the self-styled “King of the North” has been itching for a return to Westminster. With polls showing him to be the most popular politician in the country, Labour MPs see a Burnham premiership as the best way of salvaging the party’s chances at the next general election — due by 2029 — and holding onto their seats.

But do they know what they’ll be getting? A rising star under New Labour, the affable and charismatic Burnham was seen as a staunch ally of former prime minister Tony Blair firmly on the party’s centrist wing. When Labour lost office in 2010, however, Burnham began to tack left. Despite a failed bid to become leader in 2010, Burnham was the favorite when the party set about picking a new chief after its second defeat in 2015.

However, Burnham’s hopes were dashed when, in a stunning upset, a hard-left outsider, Jeremy Corbyn, won the crown. Burnham went on to serve loyally in Corbyn’s shadow Cabinet, refusing to resign in 2016 when most of his colleagues quit the top team in a failed coup attempt.

In Manchester, Burnham has positioned himself to the left of Starmer — although his political journey has taken a further turn in recent weeks as he sought to win support in blue-collar Makerfield. The “Red Wall” seat has been solidly Labour for over a century, but it also voted heavily for Brexit, and the right-wing populist Reform UK swept the constituency  in May’s local elections. If the popular Burnham weren’t running, Reform could well have won the seat.

During his 2015 leadership bid, Burnham stuck to his hitherto broadly pro-Israel position, promising at a Jewish community town hall that, if elected, his first foreign trip would be to Israel. Opposing the BDS movement, he added that he failed to understand the “unjustified spitefulness” directed against a country that stood up for gay rights, trade union rights and civil liberties.

Andy Burnham, Britain’s Labour candidate for Makerfield, speaks to supporters during the by-election in Makerfield, England, Thursday, June 18, 2026 where voters are choosing a new lawmaker with Andy Burnham of the Labour Party as the leading contender.(AP/Jon Super)

After the bloody Hamas-led invasion of October 7, 2023, Burnham, by then mayor of Greater Manchester, assailed Hamas’s “barbaric” and “appalling” attacks and stated his belief in Israel’s “right to defend itself and protect its civilians.”

Nonetheless, along with London Mayor Sadiq Khan, Burnham was one of the first senior Labour figures to call for a ceasefire in late October 2023 — just weeks into the war and months before Starmer, who was fiercely resisting pressure within the party to roll back his support for Israel, eventually joined them. Burnham also publicly called for the UK to recognize a Palestinian state last June. In recent days, however, he’s provoked the ire of the hard left by refusing to label Israel’s actions in Gaza a “genocide.”

Josh Simons: The Starmerite rebel

Burnham’s route back to the House of Commons — a requirement for any aspiring Labour leader — was made possible by the resignation of Jewish Labour MP Josh Simons, who was elected to represent Makerfield in…