What was claimed
A picture of Andy Burnham’s return to Parliament shows him standing next to several women who are wearing Islamic dress.
Our verdict
This image has been edited to include the women in Islamic dress. They do not appear in the original photo posted by Deputy Leader of the Labour Party, Lucy Powell MP.
An image that appears to show the new MP for Makerfield, Andy Burnham, standing next to several women who are wearing Islamic dress, is circulating on social media.
The picture has been shared on X and Facebook with the caption “Different face, same religion. Starmer 2.0.” But this image has been edited to include several women wearing hijabs and niqabs who were not in the original photo posted by the Deputy Leader of the Labour Party, Lucy Powell MP, on 22 June.
The original photo shows Mr Burnham standing alongside Ms Powell and Jessica Morden on the day he returned to Parliament following his victory in the Makerfield by-election. Both women have been removed in the edited version, but other figures in the background, including the chancellor Rachel Reeves and former Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner, are standing in the same position in both images.
Other images published on the day show the same scene of Mr Burnham with Labour Party colleagues from different angles. There are no genuine images of Mr Burnham standing in this location on this date with a group of women who are wearing Islamic dress in the front row.
Join 74,000 newsletter subscribers who trust us to check the facts
Sign up to get weekly updates on politics, immigration, health and more.
Subscribe to weekly email newsletters from Full Fact for updates on politics, immigration, health and more. Our fact checks are free to read but not to produce, so you will also get occasional emails about fundraising and other ways you can help. You can unsubscribe at any time. For more information about how we use your data see our Privacy Policy.
Mr Burnham is so far the only candidate to have announced a bid to replace the Labour leader and Prime Minister, Sir Keir Starmer.
Although it may be obvious to some people that the image isn’t real, it received a number of ‘angry’ reactions and comments on Facebook appearing to come from those who believed it was genuine.
We recently wrote about another fake image of Mr Burnham circulating online that appeared to show him meeting a group of men of Asian heritage.
It’s important to rely on sources that are trustworthy and verifiable before sharing content which you see on social media. Our toolkit has tips on how to do this.
This article is part of our work fact checking potentially false pictures, videos and stories on Facebook. You can read more about this—and find out how to report Facebook content—here. For the purposes of that scheme, we’ve rated this claim as altered because this image has been edited to include several women in Islamic dress.
Full Fact fights for good, reliable information in the media, online, and in politics.
Fact checking claims made by politicians, public figures and viral online content can give you the full picture backed by the evidence.
Subscribe to weekly email newsletters from Full Fact for updates on politics, immigration, health and more. Our fact checks are free to read but not to produce, so you will also get occasional emails about fundraising and other ways you can help. You can unsubscribe at any time. For more information about how we use your data see our Privacy Policy.