Nobody ran against him. That is the detail critics keep returning to as Andy Burnham is confirmed as Labour leader at a special party conference in central London, one step from Downing Street.
Burnham, the MP for Makerfield, became the sole candidate after 379 Labour MPs and most of the party’s affiliated trade unions nominated him earlier in the week. Other potential contenders said they would not challenge him, which cleared the way for him to become prime minister unopposed. Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood, as chair of Labour’s national executive committee, was to announce the result. Burnham takes over from Sir Keir Starmer on Monday.
The rise has been fast. His by-election win in Makerfield came last month, after heavy Labour losses in May’s local elections left Starmer facing widespread calls from his own MPs to stand aside.
What he plans to say
In his speech, Burnham was set to promise a government “unashamedly Labour in our priorities” with the “courage to fix the big things that politics has neglected.” He would pledge to lead “for the north and the south, for Scotland, for Wales and for Northern Ireland,” and call for a “new path to the one we’ve been on for the last 40 years.”
The economic outline: more public control of utilities such as water, plus reindustrialisation. He will also thank Starmer for winning the 2024 general election and point to NHS improvements as achievements of the Labour government so far. Starmer, speaking to Sky News on a visit to Ukraine, said he wanted an “orderly transition” and had left a “sound foundation.”
Steve Rotherham, mayor of Liverpool City Region and a close ally, dismissed claims that a Burnham premiership would only be the same as what came before, communicated differently. Those people were “absolutely deluded,” he told BBC Radio 4.
The questions
Not everyone is satisfied. Graham Stringer is one of 24 Labour MPs who did not nominate Burnham. He told the Today programme that a “whole series of major policies are still a mystery.” Nominating him, Stringer said, “would have been giving a blank cheque,” and Burnham “owes it both to the Parliamentary Labour Party and the country to be more explicit.”
Burnham has also been accused of dodging scrutiny since entering Parliament. So far he has done interviews with LBC and Gary Lineker, and an online Q and A on Reddit. During that session, Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch urged him to “come out from hiding, face a proper press conference.” His answer was that it had been only two weeks since 74,000 members of the public in Makerfield questioned him.
Some detail has emerged. In a Manchester speech earlier this month he proposed a No 10 unit based in Manchester to give local government more control over housing and transport. He has called social care the area where he will “expend quite a lot of political capital,” and he insists he will not be “indisciplined” with public finances.
The International Monetary Fund has urged caution. Its new UK report says authorities should be “very selective” in accommodating new demands on spending. Labour has trailed Reform UK in the polls for almost 18 months.
