Andy Burnham takes on Sir Keir Starmer in row over far Left mayoral candidate

Andy Burnham has criticised the Labour leadership for being undemocratic after a hard-Left candidate was blocked from standing as mayor for the North East.

The mayor for Greater Manchester joined with Steve Rotheram, the mayor for the Liverpool city region, to say the rules were opaque and unfair.

Their complaint concerns Jamie Driscoll, who is presently the mayor for North of Tyne. He was elected in 2019 and is sometimes referred to as the “last Corbynista in power”.

Mr Driscoll put his name forward as a Labour candidate for the new North East region - but did not get into the final three.

His supporters believe Labour’s ruling National Executive Council, which is now run by centrists, have kept him off the ballot because of his hard-Left affiliation.

On Sunday, Mr Burnham and Mr Rotheram, the mayor of the Liverpool city region, wrote to Johanna Baxter, the NEC chief executive, saying: “Whilst we appreciate the NEC’s important role in upholding standards within the party, and rooting out any form of anti-Semitism, racism and discrimination, it also has a responsibility to ensure decisions are democratic, transparent and fair. To exclude a sitting mayor from a selection process with no right of appeal appears to us to be none of those things.”

They praised his “constructive, non-partisan approach”, adding: “At the very least, we believe Jamie Driscoll should be entitled to a process of appeal with the ability to put his case to an NEC panel.”

Mr Driscoll, a black belt in jiu-jitsu who ditched his car as part of a personal commitment to carbon reduction, told The Guardian that he was not given any reason for being blocked from standing, but suspected it was “because I would have won” and because “my political positions have fallen out of favour with the current party leadership”.

He cited his support for a wealth tax and common ownership of utilities – a Labour party policy under Jeremy Corbyn, which has been ditched by Keir Starmer. Like Mr Burnham, the mayor of Greater Manchester, Mr Driscoll also supports proportional representation, another departure from national Labour party policy.

In an interview with Times Radio on Sunday, Jonathan Reynolds, the shadow business secretary, suggested Mr Driscoll’s candidacy had been blocked because he had taken part in an event with the film director Ken Loach, who was expelled from the party in 2021.

Mr Reynolds said: “Where a person has shared a platform with someone who themselves has been expelled from the Labour Party because of their position on anti-Semitism, for opposing the necessary and essential action the Labour party has taken under Keir Starmer to correct the shocking position we were in on anti-Semitism, that would preclude them from going forward as a Labour candidate unless they could have a good account of why that significant event has taken place.”

Mr Driscoll interviewed Mr Loach at the Live Theatre in Newcastle upon Tyne in March, and said the two discussed the films he had made in the North East.

Asked whether he thought Mr Loach was anti-Semitic, Mr Driscoll said there was “a lot of smoke but very little fire”, but acknowledged that a lot of people did not like the director’s views on Israel and Palestine.