Twenty votes against the majority of his own party in sixteen years, most of them free votes, is an exceptionally loyal record even by the standards of ministers. For comparison, the well-known Labour rebels of the same parliaments defied the whip hundreds of times. Burnham voted with his party through every major whipped controversy of the New Labour years: the Iraq war divisions of March 2003, top-up tuition fees in 2004, foundation hospitals, identity cards, and 90-day pre-charge detention in 2005. His disagreements were expressed inside the tent, a pattern that runs through his later career: the 2009 Hillsborough turn happened while he stayed in Cabinet, and his critiques of party leadership were made as mayor from within the party.
Search the divisions yourself: Iraq, tuition fees, identity cards, terrorism, or hunting.
Nearly all fall into three clusters, none of them frontal challenges to the government's programme.
The largest cluster. In the free votes on Lords composition he consistently backed a more elected chamber than the Labour majority did: the February 2003 options (No. 2, No. 4, No. 6) and the March 2007 composition options for a 50, 60 and 80 per cent elected House (50%, 60%, 80%). Alongside these sit House-of-Commons housekeeping votes: payment for select committee chairs in 2002 (div. 238, div. 239), Commons modernisation in 2005 (div. 47), and the 2009 Political Parties and Elections Bill votes on candidates' home addresses and consequential amendments (div. 45, div. 46, div. 47).
On the free vote on docking dogs' tails he voted against the ban the Labour majority supported (div. 188). On the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill in May 2008, votes widely reported as reflecting his Catholic upbringing, he twice backed amendments to the conditions for embryo research licences against the majority (div. 197, div. 198).
The 2007 Sustainable Communities Bill (div. 25, where he was one of 17 noes against a bill that passed 175 to 17) and four deferred divisions on a single day in November 2010, early in opposition, on Northern Ireland and health-and-safety orders (div. 126, div. 127, div. 128, div. 129).
| Parliament | His roles | Eligible divisions | Votes cast | Against Labour majority |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2001–2005 | Backbencher, PPS, junior whip-range roles | 1,246 | 1,003 (80%) | 6 (0.6%) |
| 2005–2010 | Minister, Chief Secretary, two Cabinet posts | 1,288 | 991 (77%) | 10 (1.0%) |
| 2010–2015 | Shadow Health Secretary, 2010 leadership candidate | 1,226 | 677 (55%) | 4 (0.6%) |
| 2015–2017 | Shadow Home Secretary, 2015 leadership candidate, mayoral campaign | 467 | 213 (46%) | 0 |
Attendance reads with the roles: ministers on government business and shadow ministers on the road miss divisions for reasons that have nothing to do with commitment, and the 2015–2017 figure covers the Parliament he spent partly campaigning to leave it. Public Whip counts an absence for every division held, including those where he was serving in Cabinet or, from 2015, standing for mayor.
This page covers Commons divisions only, 2001 to 2017. It does not cover his votes in Cabinet or shadow cabinet (unrecorded by nature), his mayoralty (no comparable division record exists), or his premiership. It cannot distinguish a whipped vote from a free vote: Public Whip's majority measure flags both, which is why the free-vote clusters above are described rather than headlined as rebellions. No division in the archive shows him voting against a whipped government position on a matter of policy substance.