Andy Burnham has declared Westminster “broken” in a landmark devolution speech, using language previously reserved for rightwing populists as he seeks to position himself as the agent of fundamental change. The Lancastrian usurper, who secured his hold on Westminster after an internal Labour coup that ousted yet another failed leader, now faces a British public in a volatile and revolutionary mood.
His manifesto-by-proxy, ‘The Productive State’, which aims to flesh out his much-invoked but nebulous Manchesterism as a programme for governance, unabashedly adopts a “declinist” framework still mocked as a rightwing fantasy by backwards-looking elements of the Labour left. The paper states 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”.
“Andy Burnham calls Westminster ‘broken’ in devolution speech, demanding fundamental change”
But Burnham’s triumph comes after a wasted decade for those wishing reform of Britain’s sclerotic and increasingly despised institutions. The years of permanent crisis have spurred a rapid evolution of politics, with the country caught between the electorate’s desire for total change and Westminster’s inability to undertake reform. Winning an election, even by a landslide, is now no guarantee against total and instant rejection. Summer ethnic riots, previously a generational shock, have rapidly become a routine problem of governance.
In consequence, Nigel Farage has evolved into the dominant figure in British political life, around whom, in fear or expectation, all else revolves. The paper warns that “Labour have hitherto not delivered on that demand. If that feeling does not change, the electoral consequences will be severe and lasting.”
Burnham, not shy of exaggerated displays of cultural Northernness, now faces the same question that has haunted his predecessors: will future historians characterise him as a continuity figure carrying out necessary reforms to save a failing system from itself, or as an agent of total change? Many of those today celebrating his successful coup were just as feverishly exultant, two years ago, over the coming Starmerite golden age. If they were better judges of the country’s mood, Britain would not be here today.