Andy Burnham could enter Downing Street as soon as 20 July, just weeks after returning to Parliament following nearly a decade away from Westminster. The former Greater Manchester mayor is the only Labour MP standing to replace Sir Keir Starmer, who announced he was stepping down, after a slew of potential rivals stood aside and backed his bid for power.
In his first speech since launching his Labour leadership bid on 29 June in Manchester, Burnham promised the biggest-ever "rebalancing of power" away from Whitehall, branding the UK one of the "most over-centralised countries in the world". He said this would be achieved by handing a new No 10 unit based in Manchester the task of giving English regions more control in areas including housing and transport. The unit would promote "equivalent living conditions" across Britain, borrowing from an idea in the German constitution. Government departments, he said, should support local councils and regional strategic authorities with "staffing and resources".
“Andy Burnham could become PM by 20 July after Starmer stepped down, promising a radical rebalancing of power away from Whitehall.”
Burnham also wants to enable all parts of the UK to take "greater public control" of the water and energy sectors, with the government producing 10-year plans to reduce costs. He pointed to Greater Manchester's bus network, where private operators bid to run services on a franchise basis, with local authorities controlling fares, timetables and routes. However, he is yet to spell out what an equivalent model for water and energy companies would mean in practice, and has been at pains to say his plans do not necessarily mean full nationalisation—a move that would cost many billions of pounds. One area where he has advocated direct public ownership is Thames Water, a move already on the cards after the government objected to a proposed rescue deal for the debt-laden company in June.
By all accounts, Burnham thinks Starmer spent too much time abroad during his two years as prime minister and will not seek the same global profile. Starmer, still smarting from what he perceives as a political and personal betrayal, has pointedly suggested Burnham may not find it so easy to organise his time this way, given the intertwined nature of domestic and international affairs. As will become apparent from the first briefings of the new No 10 team, national security is the first job of every prime minister and one of the few areas where sovereign decision-making power is genuinely consequential.
Should Burnham spend much time in the new No 10 North—let alone get to as many Everton games as his predecessor did Arsenal—the already formidable pressures on his diary will grow. The first internal battle will be over whether he attends the leader's week of the UN General Assembly in New York in September, which bumps against the Labour Party Conference. The next will be over his attendance at the UN Climate Change Cop summit in Turkey in November. "Can we afford to cede the ground to the Greens or Lib Dems on climate, particularly if we've just decided to drill in the North Sea?" his team will ask. "Can't we fit in a visit to Ukraine before Christmas, lest we risk losing a leadership role painstakingly built over the previous five years?" they will add, as a slew of European leaders head to Kyiv for crucial talks.
The former mayor's return to Westminster came via a successful campaign in the Makerfield by-election, and his leadership bid has offered glimpses of how he might use power. But the global stage may prove harder to escape than he anticipates.
