{"id":1189,"date":"2026-05-14T17:50:17","date_gmt":"2026-05-14T17:50:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dailypakistannews.com\/?p=1189"},"modified":"2026-05-14T17:50:17","modified_gmt":"2026-05-14T17:50:17","slug":"uk-lawmaker-resigns-seat-clearing-path-for-leadership-challenger-burnham","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dailypakistannews.com\/?p=1189","title":{"rendered":"UK lawmaker resigns seat, clearing path for leadership challenger Burnham"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>LONDON: British Labour lawmaker Josh Simons on Thursday said he would resign from his seat in parliament in a move designed to give Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham a chance to return to parliament and challenge Prime Minister Keir Starmer.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>\u201cToday, I am putting the people I represent and the country I love first and will be resigning as MP for Makerfield,\u201d Simons wrote on X.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"media  w-full  w-full  media--    media--uneven  media--stretch\" data-original-src=\"https:\/\/x.com\/joshsimonsmp\/status\/2054958527186186484?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Etweet\">\n<div class=\"media__item  media__item--twitter  \"><span><\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>\n        <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/joshsimonsmp\/status\/2054958527186186484?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Etweet\"><\/a>\n    <\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><\/span><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<p>\u201cI am standing aside so that Andy Burnham can return to his home, fight to re-enter Parliament, and if elected, drive the change our country is crying out for.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Earlier on Thursday, Labour\u2019s Wes Streeting resigned as health minister and called for a leadership contest to oust Starmer.<\/p>\n<p>Simons cannot transfer the seat to Burnham. Instead, a special election would have to be held to replace him, in which other parties can also compete.<\/p>\n<p>Simons won the Makerfield seat in Greater Manchester at the 2024 election with a majority of 5,399 votes over a candidate from Nigel Farage\u2019s Reform UK party.<\/p>\n<p>Since that vote, Reform\u2019s popularity has risen sharply as Labour\u2019s has dipped, meaning the seat will likely be tightly contested.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>LONDON: British Labour lawmaker Josh Simons on Thursday said he would resign from his seat in parliament in a move designed to give Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham a chance to return to parliament and challenge Prime Minister Keir Starmer. \u201cToday, I am putting the people I represent and the country I love first and [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":1190,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1189","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-pakistan-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailypakistannews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1189","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailypakistannews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailypakistannews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailypakistannews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1189"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailypakistannews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1189\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailypakistannews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1190"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailypakistannews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1189"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailypakistannews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1189"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailypakistannews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1189"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}