Andy Burnham said the Gorton and Denton by-election “revealed the full depth of the chasm between people and Westminster politics” as he broke his silence about Labour’s defeat to the Green Party.

The mayor of Greater Manchester was blocked from standing as the Labour candidate in last week’s by-election by the party’s National Executive Committee, amid fears he could mount a leadership challenge to the prime minister.

However, he made numerous appearances on the campaign trail with the party’s candidate Angeliki Stogia, who finished in third place behind the the Green Party’s Hannah Spencer and Reform UK’s Matt Goodwin.

At an event at the British Library in London on Wednesday, Mr Burnham said the result demonstrated that Westminster was not focused on the priorities of ordinary people.

Mr Burnham said: “From my point of view, I’m definitely not here to talk about my career plans, other than to say I wrote a book as you might know, with the mayor of the Liverpool City region Steve Rotherham about leaving Westminster and establishing devolution across England.

“It’s called ‘Head North’. All I can say today is that the sequel ‘Head South’ is currently on hold.”

He added: “What I want to say today is that the time has most definitely come for a serious conversation about our political system and its pervading culture, particularly so in the aftermath of the Gorton and Denton by-election.

“It revealed the full depth of the chasm between people and Westminster politics. I don’t think anybody can seriously dispute that statement.”

The defeat in Gorton and Denton was bruising for Labour. It was defending a majority of 13,000 votes from the 2024 general election, when Andrew Gwynne was elected but finished more than 5,000 votes behind the victorious Ms Spencer.

The constituency was created in 2024 due to boundary changes but its previous iterations had long been held by Labour – Manchester Gorton since 1935, Denton and Reddish since its 1983 creation.

Several Gorton and Denton constituents told The Independent during the campaign that they would not vote for Labour, but they would do so if Mr Burnham was the candidate.

Mr Burnham, who represented Greater Manchester seat Leigh as its MP from 2001 to 2017 and served in Gordon Brown’s government, was re-elected for a third term as the city region’s mayor in May 2024 with 63 per cent of the vote.

Lifelong Labour voters John Harrison, 71, and Sheila Harrison, 69, from Denton said Sir Keir Starmer doesn’t represent towns like theirs and they wouldn’t vote for Labour – unless Mr Burnham had been on the ballot.

“Labour isn’t really doing what you know they said that it was going to do in the manifesto,” John said, adding that he feels let down by the government.

“I would have voted for Andy Burnham,” John added.

He said Mr Burnham has more personality and is able to connect with northern voters. He believes the Greater Manchester mayor is on his side in a way that Sir Keir, who he describes as “aloof”, is not. Sheila would agree.

Retired midwife Andrea Anwyl, 77, was another lifelong Labour supporter in Denton disillusioned with the government. She told The Independent she would likely vote Green but says she “definitely” would have voted for Mr Burnham if he were the Labour candidate.

“I don’t like Starmer. I don’t like what he’s done,” she said.

Caterina Pandolfo, 65, said she could not forgive the treatment of Greater Manchester’s mayor by Labour’s NEC.

She said: “The way he [Starmer] treated Andy Burnham was disgusting.

“I don’t think he’s doing very well at all, Keir Starmer, sadly,” she adds. “He could have done so much.”

The mayor spoke on Wednesday at think tank Centre for Cities’ event “Manchesterism rising from devolution”, looking at his time in office and his ambitions for the region.

The Merseyside-born Mr Burnham described polling by More in Common which found a majority of people do not think the cost-of-living crisis will ever end as “code red for Westminster politics”.

He added: “This is getting extremely dangerous, and change in our political system and culture is desperately needed.”