Labour is holding its 2025 conference against a backdrop of Andy Burnham, mayor of Manchester, calling for “wholesale change”. Burnham is making a clear attempt to use the government’s record of scandal, u-turn and general identity crisis as fuel for his own leadership bid. But he is far from alone in attacking Keir Starmer’s Labour for lacking ideological clarity.
Starmer and his team have repeatedly tried to reset the party’s image, reframe its message, and reassure voters that Labour represents competence, stability and pragmatic change. These efforts have amounted to two of the three classic branding strategies: brand repair and brand reboot.
Labour has so far stopped short of the third and most consequential option: a full brand overhaul. But this is precisely what is now required. Surface-level resets and tactical communication tweaks cannot solve a deeper problem: voters remain unclear about Labour’s ideological core, its long-term vision, and its promise to UK voters.
