Gary Neville ‘considering running for Manchester mayor’ after joining Labour party

Gary Neville is reportedly eyeing up the position of Manchester mayor after joining the Labour party, a government official has claimed today.

The Manchester United legend, who has been one of the most outspoken critics of Boris Johnson and the Conservative party, confirmed that he had joined the party on a BBC podcast this week.

He said: “I have joined in the last few days the Labour Party. That is purely for myself, I want to support Labour.

“I do believe we need a progressive Labour Party, but one that not just looks after what would be the left side of the party, it has to come towards the centre.”

And when asked whether his move could mean running for public office, he replied: “I don’t know at the moment.”

Culture secretary Lucy Powell has since confirmed that Neville has joined the party, saying he had discussed it with her ‘for a while’. She then added that he could potentially run as Labour’s Greater Manchester mayoral candidate in 2024.

Powell, who is also the MP for Manchester Central, said: “I personally think he’s more than capable of navigating – well, steaming – his way through the world of politics! Look forward to helping.”

Powell’s tweet was in response to a rumour from Jim Waterson, the media editor of The Guardian, who claims Neville is ‘not ruling out’ running to become the mayor of Greater Manchester.

Neville has previously expressed doubts about his abilities in the world of politics, however, saying in the podcast: “I say to myself sometimes I’m able to communicate, I know what I want, I have got a business mind, I can manage people in respect of businesses.

“But I just think I’d get eaten alive. I don’t know what Whitehall is like, Westminster is like.

“I can only imagine what you have to do there to survive and I don’t play the game, so how can I get in?”

Greater Manchester’s current mayor Andy Burnham is one of the most popular politicians in the country right now, and achieved landslide victories in the 2017 and 2021 mayoral elections.

Burnham worked as an MP between 2001 and 2017 and was a government minister under Gordon Brown, the most recent Labour PM to date.