Donald Trump has branded Andy Burnham an “extremely liberal” politician who “probably won’t open up” the North Sea for further drilling, and dismissed the man widely expected to be Britain’s next prime minister as “the mayor of a town”.
The US president’s first public reaction to Burnham came after Keir Starmer’s resignation was announced by Trump himself on Sunday — before the prime minister had done so. Trump told reporters at the White House that the UK “was dying” and that Burnham, who spent eight years as Greater Manchester mayor, was just “the new kid on the block”.
“Trump calls Burnham 'extremely liberal' and 'mayor of a town'; Major warns his experience is no preparation for global challenges.”
Burnham’s team declined to comment. The new MP for Makerfield, the only declared candidate to replace Starmer as Labour leader, faces a challenge Trump’s intervention underscores: how to handle a US president he has previously condemned. In 2017 Burnham told the Manchester Evening News he would refuse to meet Trump as a “matter of principle”, accusing him of sharing “hateful extremist material”, and in 2021 he posted on X that “any UK politician who gave Trump the time of day should be ashamed right now”.
He is not the only Labour figure with form. Sadiq Khan, whom Trump again described as “grossly incompetent” on Wednesday, has long been a target. But foreign secretary David Lammy built a friendship with US Vice President JD Vance under Trump’s first administration.
Former prime minister Sir John Major has also warned that dealing with buses in Manchester is no preparation for the international stage. In an interview with The Independent’s editor in chief Geordie Greig, Major said Burnham’s experience as mayor “is a little different from dealing with government, not to mention Xi, Putin, Trump, Macron, Merz”. He raised concerns that without a leadership contest Burnham would be “parachuted in” and not have his ideas tested, and warned he could turn further left, “tapping the money tree and increasing benefits” when the country cannot afford it. Major also mocked Labour’s failure to find a leader among its 400 MPs.
Despite the criticism, a YouGov poll of 2,381 British adults found voters believe Burnham would make a better prime minister than Nigel Farage, by 43% to 23%. He also beat Tory leader Kemi Badenoch 32% to 28% — a poll released after Badenoch dismissed him at PMQs as “a pair of eyelashes and a black T-shirt”. Burnham responded on social media with a self-deprecating video: “It’s dark blue actually.”
Burnham is expected to take office on July 17 and plans to install his longstanding friend James Purnell as No 10 chief of staff. Purnell, a former Blairite cabinet minister who resigned from Gordon Brown’s government in 2009 in a failed coup attempt, was the architect of that shock move while Burnham rushed to pledge loyalty to Brown. The two men, born two months apart in 1970, once shared a flat, played in the same Labour football team and worked in the same small Commons office. One senior Labour figure described them as a “double act”, with Purnell’s appointment a strategy to have a chief of staff who knows the PM’s mind — “force-multiplying through the system” as Blair had.
Hosting the G20 next year and the G7 the year after, both attended by Trump, Burnham will have little time to adjust to a world stage he has so far avoided.