Gary Neville identified as next Mayor of Manchester

Gary Neville has been mentioned as a potential replacement for Andy Burnham as Mayor of Greater Manchester.

There has been noise in the political arena that Burnham is poised to return to the Labour party as an MP and challenge for the leadership of the party against Sir Kier Starmer.

Andy Burnham has not yet confirmed whether he will run in the Gorton and Denton by-election, but it is being reported that he’s already identified a potential replacement for himself if .

The impact inflicted by Burnham leaving his position would be significant as he has been a highly popular Mayor in Manchester.

And insiders believe that a big-ticket name would be needed for the position to continue holding strength.

Having represented Manchester United and England at the highest level, Gary Neville has been mentioned as a candidate.

Not only a visible and famous person from the city of Manchester itself as a football player, Neville is also quite politically engaged having worked with Manchester City Council on business projects in the past.

With that in mind, his name has been put forward by some of those within the Labour party itself.

“If you’re Andy, it’s better to have the promise of a big gun rather than popping some unknown council leader on the ballot as the mayoral candidate, then [the mayoralty] falling to Nigel Farage,” a Labour insider told The i Paper.

“I think he has somebody in mind in the shape of Gary Neville. Whether or not the party members would respond to that, I don’t know.”

Gary Neville is already a member of the Labour Party and has previously appeared with the Prime Minister and party leader Sir Keir Starmer on a number of occasions.

Starmer has also featured on The Overlap YouTube channel in June of 2024.

Joining the party as a member in 2022 came with speculation and Gary Neville was hesitant to rule out not moving into politics in the future.

However, the potential of him becoming the Mayor of Manchester ultimately depends on the decision of Andy Burnham and whether he is to run for MP of Gorton and Denton.