On Monday, while the cameras were fixed on the famous black door in Downing Street, a small team of officials and advisers walked into an office building in Manchester to begin what Prime Minister Andy Burnham calls “the remaking of the British state.” This was the launch of No 10 North, the first major act of Burnham’s government, which he hopes will be its most defining.
Writing in the Guardian, Burnham said the initiative aims to correct 40 years of wrong turns: the centralisation of political power, the privatisation of economic power, and the deindustrialisation of communities. Many of the worst-affected places have never recovered, he argued, because they lack the power to turn things around. “This feeling of neglect has lain underneath the increasingly fractious politics that has bedevilled Britain,” he wrote.
“Burnham opens No 10 North in Manchester while facing challenge of resetting EU relations after Brexit.”
No 10 North, he explained, will be responsible for accelerating devolution, driving reindustrialisation and growth across every postcode, and removing barriers to regeneration – from council housebuilding to public transport infrastructure. The long-term ambition is “equivalent living standards across all the regions and nations of the UK.”
The move comes as Burnham also faces a delicate diplomatic challenge. He is the seventh British prime minister since the Brexit vote 10 years ago, and the question, according to a Politico EU podcast, is whether he can “refresh relations with Europe and rescue a reset with Brussels that feels like it has been kicked into the long grass.”
The podcast, hosted by Anne McElvoy, features two guests who know the knotty relationship well: Sylvie Boulard, France’s defense minister in 2017 and a former MEP in Emmanuel Macron’s En Marche party, and Sir Simon Fraser, who led the Foreign Office between 2010 and 2015 and now runs the consultancy Flint Global. Fraser worked with James Purnell, who has just become Burnham’s chief of staff.
Burnham’s article acknowledged past failures – “gimmicks, such as levelling up” – and insisted that No 10 North would bring “the whole of Whitehall together behind places rather than standing in their way.” Whether this engine for growth can also help mend ties with Europe remains an open question as his government settles in.