{"id":1119508,"date":"2026-07-30T05:48:17","date_gmt":"2026-07-30T05:48:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/1119508\/"},"modified":"2026-07-30T05:48:17","modified_gmt":"2026-07-30T05:48:17","slug":"voters-in-manchester-choose-a-mayor-to-replace-andy-burnham-after-he-becomes-prime-minister","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/1119508\/","title":{"rendered":"Voters in Manchester choose a mayor to replace Andy Burnham after he becomes prime minister"},"content":{"rendered":"

LONDON (AP) \u2014 Voters in the English city of Manchester are electing a new mayor Thursday to replace Andy Burnham,<\/a> who quit the job to become Britain\u2019s prime minister.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s also chance for some 2 million voters to pass judgment on the governing Labour Party, whose sagging popularity Burnham hopes to revive. Polling stations are open from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m., with vote-counting starting Friday morning.<\/p>\n

Burnham was mayor of Greater Manchester for nine years until he won a special election<\/a> for a seat in Parliament last month with the intention of challenging then- Prime Minister Keir Starmer<\/a> for the Labour leadership.<\/p>\n

Burnham\u2019s momentum spurred Starmer to announce he would resign after just two years in office. Burnham was the only candidate in Labour\u2019s leadership election, and he became prime minister<\/a> on July 20.<\/p>\n

He has established a branch of the prime minister\u2019s office in the city, dubbed \u201cNo. 10 North,\u201d to help fulfil his pledge to give local leaders more powers<\/a> and spread economic growth around the country.<\/p>\n

The Greater Manchester region has a population of about 3 million and includes the city of Manchester and surrounding towns. Burnham won three straight mayoral elections, in 2017, 2021 and 2024, and Labour candidate Bev Craig, the current leader of Manchester City Council, is hoping to retain the mayoralty for the party.<\/p>\n

Burnham said serving as mayor had been an \u201cimmense privilege,\u201d and he urged voters to back Craig to \u201cbuild on the progress we\u2019ve all made together.\u201d<\/p>\n

Craig faces six other candidates, including Sian Astley from the anti-immigration party Reform UK,<\/a> which won big in many areas of Greater Manchester in local elections in May<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Labour has also lost voters to the Green Party<\/a>, which won a special parliamentary election in the Gorton and Denton district of Greater Manchester in February, pushing Labour into third place and heightening concerns in the governing party about Starmer\u2019s leadership. Those worries came to a head after the May election rout, leading to Starmer\u2019s fall and Burnham\u2019s rise.<\/p>\n

Rob Ford, professor of politics at the University of Manchester, said \u201cLabour want a show of strength in a city region where the party has long been politically dominant.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cA big win in his former stomping ground will provide a significant boost for Andy Burnham,\u201d Ford wrote in a blog post for the U.K. in a Changing Europe think tank.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LONDON (AP) \u2014 Voters in the English city of Manchester are electing a new mayor Thursday to replace…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1119509,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[8813],"tags":[225767,8916,748,33,393,4179,4884,807,2465,285,304999,16,15,11654,26199,263],"class_list":["post-1119508","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-manchester","tag-2026-elections","tag-andy-burnham","tag-britain","tag-elections","tag-england","tag-general-news","tag-great-britain","tag-keir-starmer","tag-manchester","tag-politics","tag-rob-ford","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-united-kingdom-government","tag-voting","tag-world-news"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/117007358697721871","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1119508","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1119508"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1119508\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1119509"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1119508"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1119508"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1119508"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}