Sir Keir Starmer has been hit with a fresh attack from Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham.
Mr Burnham, who was accused of jumping the gun by talking up his leadership ambitions at the Labour Party Conference, criticised the Prime Minister’s record on homelessness.
He said: “What I am saying is homelessness is fixable – it requires something more radical if you really want to fix it.
“If you go for that ‘housing first’ approach – ‘everyone in’, ‘a bed every night’, those type of approaches – in the end, in my view, you save money.
“And that’s what I would encourage them to do. So I’m not saying they haven’t done lots of good things.
“They have done lots of really important things. But from here, let’s get into a more radical approach.”
The Greater Manchester Mayor, who was accused of jumping the gun by pitching himself as a potential successor to Sir Keir at the Labour Party Conference in September, also confirmed he is prepared to return to Westminster.
He added: “I’m not an MP, I can’t stand in a leadership race. It’s not for me, it would be for other people in Westminster, wouldn’t it, to decide.
Sir Keir Starmer is under increasing pressure from his own MPs
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“I want to support the government, I’m here to make a success of this Labour Government, and I don’t know if people there think I have a could have a role in that in any capacity, and I mean in any capacity when I say that, then of course, if the call came, I’m not going to just turn away from it, but I want the government to succeed.”
Mr Burnham’s intervention came just hours after Liberal Democrat leader Sir Ed Davey warned Sir Keir might only have 12 more months in Downing Street.
Speaking at Prime Minister’s Questions, Sir Ed asked: “Does the Prime Minister fear if he keeps opposing a customs union, in 12 months’ time he will not be standing there?”
Sir Keir replied: “We have got a closer relationship with the EU, through our reset earlier this year.
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Labour Mayor Andy Burnham
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PA“And, yes, I do want a closer relationship to the one we’ve got at the moment, we are moving towards that.
“We do have manifesto commitments on issues such as single market, customs union and freedom of movement.”
The exchange came after the Prime Minister was rocked by a 13-strong Brexit revolt over a Ten Minute Rule Bill to drag Britain back into the EU’s customs union.
The Customs Union (Duty to Negotiate) Bill, tabled by the Liberal Democrats’ Europe spokesman Dr Al Pinkerton, passed its first Commons hurdle on Tuesday.
Keir Starmer | GETTY
The vote was evenly split with 100 MPs supporting calls to bind Britain to Brussels’s rule-taking trade arrangement and 100 MPs voting against.
Deputy Speaker Caroline Nokes, who had the whip removed by Boris Johnson after rebelling against Brexit in September 2019, was called to cast the deciding vote.
However, Ms Nokes pointed out that her casting vote was merely following parliamentary precedent.
“In accordance with precedent, I will cast the casting vote aye to allow further debate,” Ms Nokes said.
Despite narrowly receiving support from MPs at this stage, the Ten Minute Rule Bill is unlikely to become law unless it receives the support of Sir Keir Government.
A No10 spokesman instead insisted: “Our focus is on strengthening our relationship with EU and reducing friction with our EU partners”.
However, Sir Keir is facing pressure from Labour MPs to break his manifesto commitment, with Deputy Prime Minister David Lammy breaking ranks to call for the UK to rejoin the customs union.
Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham and ex-Labour leader Lord Kinnock have also suggested the UK should consider rejoining the EU in recent months.
