Andy Burnham has promised to publicly disagree with Donald Trump if necessary, declaring in his first major broadcast interview as prime minister that he will ‘defend the national interest before anything else’.
Speaking exclusively to the BBC’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg, Burnham described his first phone call with the US president as ‘really warm’ but twice refused to say whether he trusted Trump. ‘It’s a changing world, isn’t it, and you just obviously have to call things as they develop,’ he said.
“Burnham vows to publicly disagree with Trump, pauses early prison release, and avoids defence spending pledge.”
Asked twice if he would challenge Trump in public, he answered ‘of course’. ‘I can’t at any point say that I won’t take a different opinion from him,’ Burnham added. ‘You have to defend your own national interest before anything else. That’s what you’re required to do if you’re to do this job properly.’
His comments came as the new defence secretary, Wes Streeting, separately told Sky News that Trump’s administration was not looking for allies who ‘suck up’. Streeting said he had been ‘clear that we have not supported offensive action in Iran and we won’t support offensive action in Iran’ – a policy that prompted fierce public attacks from Trump under Keir Starmer.
Burnham’s interview also ruled out an early general election. ‘There’s no early general election. I don’t think people want it,’ he said.
Meanwhile, the prime minister’s first week in office has seen him pause a controversial early prison release scheme that would have made thousands of prisoners in England and Wales eligible for release after serving a third or half of their sentences. The move followed criticism from victims’ families, including Lissie Harper, widow of PC Andrew Harper, who called the plans ‘deplorable’. Burnham said: ‘No prisoners will be let out under this policy until we have conducted an urgent review and done everything we can to minimise risk to the public.’
Burnham, a keen runner, also completed the Great Manchester 10K in 53 minutes and 15 seconds – almost exactly the average time for a British male – reinforcing his ‘man of the people’ reputation.
The prime minister’s refusal to commit to a 3% of GDP defence spending target by 2030, a stance that led his own chancellor John Healey to resign from the previous government, remains unresolved. Burnham said: ‘We’ve got to work out the way of doing that.’