Nominations closed at 6pm on Wednesday 15 July 2026. The final official tally: 379 of Labour's 403 MPs nominated Andy Burnham, and no other candidate reached the 81 needed to stand; the only other nomination signed, by Neil Coyle, went to Catherine West, who herself nominated Burnham (official PLP nominations list). The list below is the official record of who signed, with their reasons in their own words where they gave them. MPs who did not nominate are listed at the bottom; where they stated a position publicly, for or against, it appears with a source the same way.
The contest ran on signed nominations only. Each MP could nominate one candidate, so the pool available to any rival was every MP who had not signed for Burnham. His first-day tally of 322 on 9 July left that pool at 81, exactly the threshold; every further signature shrank it, ITV News reported a contest mathematically impossible once the tally reached 349 on 13 July, and no rival emerged. The pool also included MPs who by convention did not nominate at all: Keir Starmer as outgoing leader, and Shabana Mahmood and Anna Turley as chairs of the NEC and the party. He was declared leader at the special conference on 17 July.
Where an MP publicly said why they backed him, their words appear beneath their name with a link to the source; quotes given after the result, on his premiership or their own appointments, are marked as such. In the did-not-nominate list, MPs who publicly stated a position or reason carry it the same way: Keir Starmer's supportive words, Samantha Niblett's explanation to LBC, the convention entries for Shabana Mahmood and Anna Turley, Graham Stringer's pre-contest backing of Shabana Mahmood, and Neil Coyle's nomination of Catherine West. The remaining MPs who did not nominate have not publicly explained their decision; searches of national and local coverage to 26 July 2026 found nothing quotable, and this page does not speculate.