Andy Burnhams Labour Unity Promise Ends In Cabinet Massacre

Andy Burnham proved he was not afraid to use his political capital when he finally got the keys to 10 Downing Street.

Within hours of being formally announced as the UK’s latest prime minister on Monday, he had completely torn up Keir Starmer’s cabinet.

Rachel Reeves was sacked as chancellor, while deputy prime minister and justice secretary David Lammy also found himself out of a job.

Chief secretary to the prime minister Darren Jones was fired, as were cabinet office minister Nick Thomas-Symonds, Northern Ireland secretary Hilary Benn and attorney general Lord Hermer.

Bridget Phillipson was stripped of her education brief, although she will still attend cabinet as the minister for women and equalities.

In all, a dozen cabinet members lost their jobs.

Despite the new PM’s vow to end Labour “factionalism”, there’s no two ways about it: this was a culling of Starmer loyalists.

In their place came close Burnham allies like Louise Haigh, who is now effectively the PM’s deputy, and Anneliese Midgley, who was made chief whip.

Ed Miliband – the first cabinet minister to tell Keir Starmer to quit – was promoted to foreign secretary, although he did miss out on the job he really wanted, Chancellor of the Exchequer.

In a major shock, that post went to John Healey – whose resignation as defence secretary last month was the final nail in Starmer’s coffin.

Meanwhile, Wes Streeting, who resigned as health secretary in May in protest at Starmer’s leadership, also returned to cabinet as the new defence secretary.

Some members of Starmer’s old team did survive, however.

They included Pat McFadden, who remains work and pensions secretary, and Yvette Cooper, who is the new health secretary.

One Labour MP described the new cabinet as “a mixed bag”.

“Some of the appointments are merit-based, but some of it pure factionalism,” the MP added.

A senior party figure told HuffPost UK: “It’s a really bad reshuffle. He’s made far too many enemies, and given far too many jobs to his mates.

“It’s not just the people he’s sacked – he’ll have pissed off Ed, Yvette and Bridget.”

A third source said: “Midgley as chief whip is a disaster, she doesn’t know enough Labour MPs.

“They’ve now got loads of pissed off people who lost jobs or who didn’t get jobs at all. What could possibly go wrong?

“It just felt lik a mess of a reshuffle done by people who don’t know the Parliamentary Labour Party, or any of the dynamics around politics that you have to balance.”

A Labour veteran defended Burnham’s line-up, however, insisting there was a “clear logic” to his appointments.

“There’s no way he could have made Ed chancellor because he’s too divisive, so making him foreign secretary is a good consolation with the added bonus that it gets him out of the country,” they said.

“Wes is a good appointment at the Ministry of Defence. He’s bright and energetic, a description which does not apply to many of those who have been sacked.

“He just needs to stop riffing on social media. He’s now in a department where they kill people, so he has to calm down and grow up, otherwise he will crash and burn.”

But not everyone is happy.

One MP was dismayed at the lack of left-wingers in the ministerial ranks.

“This is a hard lesson in power politics and it’s a lesson well received,” he said.

“This is what the cabinet would have looked like if Owen Smith had beaten Jeremy Corbyn in 2016. The left won’t feature apart from the perhaps odd token position.”

This week’s Commons People podcast explores what kind of message Burnham is trying to send with his appointments – and why he might have added more fuel to Labour’s simmering civil war.

Listen to Commons People, the podcast that makes politics easy. Every week, Kevin Schofield and Kate Nicholson unpack the week’s biggest stories to keep you informed. Join us for straightforward analysis of what’s going on at Westminster.