For weeks, Andy Burnham’s supporters had been telling MPs to “hold the line” - the parliamentary equivalent of reassuring everyone that the train is definitely coming, just maybe delayed by a few leadership contests and a couple of blocked byelections. The full truth, as it turns out, was slightly less encouraging.

Burnham’s path to No 10 - if he ever makes it - is littered with more failed attempts than a reality TV contestant. Two leadership bids, a block on a return in Gorton and Denton, and a growing collection of aggrieved MPs in the north west who have spent weeks fending off suggestions they should hand over their seats like a hot potato. By Thursday, with almost all likely contenders ruling themselves out, his backers were getting desperate. Only a tiny handful of the Greater Manchester mayor’s closest advisers knew the truth: a seat was finally coming, and nobody saw it coming.

When Wes Streeting resigned from Keir Starmer’s cabinet at 1pm on Thursday, it set off a political bomb - outwardly, things looked bleak. Streeting hadn’t launched a leadership bid, and Burnham still had no seat in Westminster. Locked out of parliament, he seemed no further on than when his last leadership tilt was torpedoed by Labour’s national executive committee refusing to let him run in the Gorton and Denton byelection. The mood among his supporters was, as one put it, “a shit cocktail” - “We’re all doomed.”

But Burnham, as some other famous northerners once sang, got by with a little help from his friends. Behind the scenes, his team got to work, and finally, on Thursday, an opportunity appeared. “It was always a case of just sitting and waiting,” said a source close to Burnham, with the confidence of hindsight masking a fraught week. Labour’s dismal performance in Gorton and Denton, plus disastrous local election results, could “unlock that route back.” As the guessing game of who would give up their seat took hold in the parliamentary press gallery, names and refusals stacked up. Paula Barker, MP for Liverpool Wavertree, said she’d be delighted if a seat could be found for Burnham - but no, not hers. Five MPs whose seats had been linked to a Burnham leadership bid all refused to stand down.

Over the previous weekend, those close to the Burnham campaign had their eyes on the Manchester Rusholme seat of Afzal Khan. But Khan apparently changed his mind, with some MPs whispering that interventions from No 10 played a part. Marie Rimmer, MP for St Helens South and Whiston, was said to hold the other seat in play. Not according to her: “I just said: ‘No, absolutely not.’ I was appalled, actually. Really insulted and disgusted.” Behind the scenes, nerves jangled. One Labour source claimed team Burnham had attempted to “bully people into stepping down” and even offered the Greater Manchester mayoralty in exchange for a parliamentary seat. Khan was rumoured to have been offered a seat in the Lords, but dismissed it: “There was never any question of me giving up my seat, it’s not true.”

By Tuesday, Burnham was on the west coast mainline, trying to win over MPs and unions in person while negotiations intensified. Several MPs told him they backed him but worried about the financial implications of losing their jobs. Then a wildcard arrived out of nowhere: Josh Simons, the 32-year-old Makerfield MP who had long been disillusioned with Starmer and believed Burnham should be the next prime minister for more than a year. The pair became close after Burnham, not Whitehall, came to his aid after major floods in Platt Bridge. “I think being a constituency MP radicalised Josh to how broken the country is,” said one friend. “He is so young, it is such a sacrifice.” Another close friend added: “Burnham knows how to advocate for the people and not for the system.”

Simons only began seriously considering giving up his seat this week. The final decision came after Burnham visited Simons at home with his wife, Leah, an American economist he met at Harvard who recently gave birth to their third child. They spent two hours asking in-depth questions about Burnham’s plan for government, his economic strategy, his position on financial markets, and what he could really do in office. Then, at 5.14pm on Thursday - a little over five hours after Streeting’s resignation - Simons announced he was stepping aside to pave Burnham’s way to Westminster.

But while the veteran politician has finally cleared the first hurdle, others remain. Labour’s majority in Makerfield was just 5,399 in 2024, and Reform UK won all the constituency’s wards in last week’s local elections. Nigel Farage has said his party will “throw absolutely everything” at the byelection, while the Greens have indicated they will properly contest it. Burnham’s success was therefore existential, Simons told the Guardian: “The electoral story perfectly encapsulates the moral story; it’s the fight of our times. We are where the Democrats were in 2021, hurdling towards oblivion with an out-of-touch PM. It just needed something that could change the story. Burnham winning in Wigan, that does it.”

Just 25 minutes after Simons announced he would step aside, Burnham confirmed he would run. “There is only so much that can be done from Greater Manchester,” he said in a statement. “This is why I now seek people’s support to return to parliament: to bring the change we have brought to Greater Manchester to the whole of the UK and make politics work properly for people.” And as the candidate took to the streets around his home for a jog in a vintage football shirt on Friday, the message was clear: he’s running - and this time, he’s actually got a seat.