Burnham vows biggest shift in 40 years after winning UK Labour leadership

MANCHESTER, England (CN) — Andy Burnham pledged Friday to deliver Britain’s biggest political and economic overhaul in four decades after he was confirmed leader of the governing Labour Party, putting him on course to become prime minister on Monday.

Burnham, the former mayor of Greater Manchester, won the leadership unopposed with the backing of 379 of Labour’s 403 members of Parliament at a special party conference in central London.

He succeeds Keir Starmer, who announced last month he would step down after losing support within the party and suffering heavy losses in local elections across England, Scotland and Wales.

In his victory speech, Burnham pledged to reverse what he called decades of overcentralized government and return power to Britain’s regions.

Power to the regions

“Britain took a series of wrong turns in the 1980s,” Burnham said, arguing political power became concentrated in London while economic power was privatized.

He promised to lead “the biggest change in 40 years of British politics,” saying a Labour government under his leadership would be “unashamedly Labour” and put “people and places at the heart of everything we do.”

Burnham said Labour lawmakers had “heard the call from the people of Makerfield on behalf of forgotten places everywhere” and pledged to rebuild trust with voters who had turned away from the party.

Burnham also pledged to unite Labour after years of internal divisions, saying factionalism had weakened the party and hampered its ability to confront Britain’s growing political right, with the far-right Reform UK party consistently leading in the polls and winning hundreds of seats in local elections.

He said he would decentralize power from Whitehall, the government’s administrative center in London, by giving regional mayors and local authorities greater control over transport, housing and economic policy. He has also proposed creating a second prime ministerial office in Manchester, dubbed “No. 10 North.”

His agenda includes Britain’s largest council house building program since the years after World War II, greater public control of water, energy and transport services, lower net migration, welfare reform, and maintaining Labour’s fiscal rules while ruling out increases in income tax, value-added tax and National Insurance payroll taxes.

Who will be in the cabinet?

The leadership victory clears the way for Burnham to become Britain’s seventh prime minister in 10 years.

Under Britain’s parliamentary system, the leader of the party with a majority in the House of Commons becomes prime minister after being formally appointed by the monarch.

Starmer will remain prime minister through the weekend before resigning to King Charles III on Monday morning. Burnham will be invited to form a government later that day.

In his speech, Burnham did not announce any cabinet appointments.

Speculation has been building on who will become chancellor, Britain’s finance minister, a choice likely to signal how aggressively he intends to pursue his economic agenda.

Much of the attention has focused on current Energy Secretary Ed Miliband, who is on the left of the party.

Initially seen as the favorite for chancellor because of his close political alignment with Burnham, Miliband has in recent days been overtaken by Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood, from the party’s right. Her appointment would likely reassure more centrist Labour lawmakers while balancing Burnham’s more interventionist platform.

Who is Andy Burnham?

The former health secretary served in the Labour governments of Prime Ministers Tony Blair and Gordon Brown before leaving Parliament in 2017 to become mayor of Greater Manchester.

He built a national profile through transport reforms that brought the region’s bus and tram network under public control, as well as frequent clashes with Boris Johnson’s Conservative government over Covid-19 restrictions.

His signature pledge as mayor was to end rough sleeping in Greater Manchester by 2020. The number of people sleeping on the streets fell sharply before rising again as Britain’s broader housing crisis deepened.

Burnham returned to Parliament last month after winning the Makerfield special election, opening a path to challenge Starmer for the Labour leadership after the prime minister’s approval ratings collapsed.

He now faces immediate pressure over defense spending as NATO members move toward higher military spending targets, while Labour has also committed to major domestic investment.

Courthouse News reporter James Francis Whitehead is based in England.

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