One week on from Keir Starmer’s resignation, Britain finds itself in a state of both certainty and ambiguity. It is almost guaranteed that Andy Burnham will be prime minister by the end of the summer, bar sudden scandal or meteorite. And yet, whether Burnham gets his expected coronation or not, the infancy of his return to Westminster coupled with the speed of Starmer’s exit timetable has created a remarkable situation: a figure who was not even an MP until a fortnight ago could soon enter Downing Street without anyone knowing what policies he will implement, other than the obligatory buzzword of “change”.
We are watching a political project being conceived in real time, where the nation’s major unions are fighting about who Burnham’s chancellor – and therefore what his economic programme – should be before he has actually been appointed prime minister.
This isn’t to say that Burnham’s plans will not become clearer. On Monday, he gave the first of what will reportedly be a series of speeches setting out his priorities, beginning with devolution and his pledge to set up a “No 10 North” in Manchester with the purpose of shifting power and growth to “every postcode”.
But it is a sign of the scale of the political and social turmoil of the past decade, and deep-seated displeasure with Starmer, that it seems quite normal – rational, even – to take a punt on someone to run the country who hasn’t even had to pitch for the job, all on a vague feeling that he will be a bit better than the last guy.
The Burnham wave is effectively an act of collective projection. Various groups are putting their – often competing – hopes on to the former Greater Manchester mayor, on the possibility he might just deliver them.
To know what a Burnham premiership could really look like, it’s worth spending less time imagining the future and more digging through his past. With a 16-year career in Westminster before his mayorship, Burnham’s former ministerial briefs and voting records cover almost every major issue he will now face as PM.
Take welfare reform. Back in 2015, when George Osborne was ushering in sweeping austerity reforms, Burnham followed the then-interim Labour boss Harriet Harman’s order to abstain on the welfare reform bill. At the time, Burnham said the legislation was “unsupportable”, but that as a cabinet member he didn’t rebel because – and you can practically hear the manifesting here – he would expect collective responsibility from his MPs if he was leader.
Fast forward a decade and Burnham inherits fresh pressure from the rightwing media to curb “the bloated welfare bill” and a cohort of Labour backbenchers who successfully rebelled against Starmer’s bid to slash personal independence payments last summer. What might the new leadership do? During the Makerfield campaign, Burnham commented he was “not squeamish” about reducing benefit spending, but that instead of implementing “crude cuts” he favoured a “preventative” approach to provide support for people to get back to work. Labour MPs may hold him to that.
Consider social care. As health secretary in 2009, Burnham proposed a free-at-the-point-of-use care service in England, paid for by abolishing inheritance tax and introducing a 10% levy on all estates – only to see it labelled a “death tax” by the Conservatives. It appears he is ready for another go. Last month, Burnham told the Guardian he “wouldn’t flinch” from tax changes to fund a social care service in England, and would like to see the anticipated Casey review into adult social care (currently kicked down the road to 2028) published as soon as the end of the year.
But will he flinch from supporting the migrant care workers needed to staff the system? As the Home Office row continues over a minister unilaterally writing a piece for the Times in favour of care worker visas, the real question is: will Burnham keep Shabana Mahmood as home secretary? And if so, how will her hardline stance on migration fit with his social care reforms?
Then there’s the cost of living. With little clarity as yet on the rumours of nationalisation of utilities, Burnham’s much discussed Bee Network of buses and trams across Manchester gives a sense of how his premiership may go: bringing some everyday necessities into public control and – as he put it in his Makerfield victory speech – making “life more affordable for people”. It’s notable that Burnham appears to not just mean the basics – say electricity bills or the weekly food shop – but the small pleasures that make life worth living. As he remarked in his speech: “People need to be able to look forward to a night out or a holiday with the kids. People need hope.”
Will achieving that involve raising wealth taxes as well as lowering household bills? In 2015, during his failed Labour leadership bid, Burnham criticised the framing of Ed Miliband’s mansion tax, describing it as “a kind of good principle” but with a label that harked back to “the 1970s politics of envy”. Language aside, he is undoubtedly a long-term advocate of taxing wealth more, rather than income. Since as far back as 2010, Burnham has been floating the idea of a land value tax to replace council tax and stamp duty, while the rightwing press are already panicking he will raise capital gains tax as part of a “radical new economic agenda”.
We can but hope. Because that’s the thing about a Burnham premiership: a bit better than the last guy isn’t going to cut it. Unfairly or not, the electorate always expects more from a Labour government and Burnham’s burden is greater still. His leadership comes off the back of widespread disappointment with Starmer – and Reform UK is waiting in the wings with a rightwing press eager to back it.
Rather than a burden, though, perhaps it should be viewed as a kind of liberation. After two years of Labour toeing the centre-right line on the false promise of electability, Burnham can now make a distinct break – not only from Starmer’s failed agenda, but the decades of social and economic dogma that have led to Britain’s current crises. Starmer squandered the opportunities that came with power. We must wait and see if Burnham seizes them.
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Frances Ryan is a Guardian columnist
