Andy Burnham has declared Westminster “broken” in a landmark devolution speech, adopting language long the preserve of Right-wing populists — and drawing comparisons with Nigel Farage just days after Labour’s internal coup installed the Lancastrian as leader.
The speech, part of Burnham’s effort to position himself as an agent of total change, came as the new prime minister seeks to stave off an electoral revolution that has seen Farage evolve into “the dominant figure in British political life, around whom, in fear or expectation, all else revolves.”
“Andy Burnham declares Westminster 'broken' in devolution speech, echoing Farage as Labour coup reshapes politics.”
Burnham’s manifesto-by-proxy, “The Productive State”, aims to flesh out his much-invoked but nebulous Manchesterism. It adopts a “declinist” framework still mocked as a Right-wing fantasy by elements of the Labour Left, stating that the public “ask now for only what is obvious: major, even fundamental changes in British society” to cast off “the meanness and frustration of long years of stagnation and decline.”
The paper notes bluntly that “Labour have hitherto not delivered on that demand. If that feeling does not change, the electoral consequences will be severe.”
That warning resonates across a political landscape transformed since Brexit. The UnHerd analysis described the past decade as “a wasted decade” for reform of Britain’s “sclerotic and increasingly despised institutions,” with the country caught between the electorate’s desire for total change and Westminster’s inability to undertake reform. Summer ethnic riots, previously a generational shock, have “rapidly become a routine problem of governance.”
Yet even as Burnham secures his hold on Westminster, disbursing sinecures to his faithful retainers, there is no certainty he will succeed where his predecessor failed. “Many of those today celebrating his successful coup were just as feverishly exultant, two years ago, over the coming Starmerite golden age,” the analysis noted. “If they were better judges of the country’s mood, we would not be here today.”
History, the piece suggests, will judge whether Burnham is a continuity figure carrying out necessary reforms to save a failing system, or an agent of total change. For now, his ‘broken’ Westminster diagnosis — once the preserve of Farage — signals that the new prime minister understands the depth of public fury. The question is whether he can deliver what Labour has so far failed to provide.