ANDY Burnham has been named as the candidate in the much-anticipated Makerfield by-election and now has a path to Number 10 should he make it across all the hurdles in his way.
He’s successfully painted himself as a principled man, someone outside the Westminster clique who has delivered for the people, who recognises Labour’s problems and can be the party’s saviour.
But over the past week, headlines have trickled through suggesting that when you scratch the surface, the Greater Manchester mayor may not be so different from the current Labour leadership and could easily crack under the pressure of governing.
Whether it’s his screeching U-turn on Brexit, clinging on to Rachel Reeves’ fiscal rules, backing off from introducing proportional representation, or his mixed record on Israel and Palestine, experts have said supporters should be concerned by the signals he is giving.
Is he just saying what he needs to be said to get in the door?
'A screen for people to project onto'
BURNHAM has been branded the “king of the North”, a label he gained for the way in which he clashed with the UK Government during the Covid-19 pandemic over regional lockdown restrictions and a lack of financial support for northern communities.
Coupled with his flagship achievement in bringing buses under public control in Manchester, he has carved himself out as a community champion who is cut from a different cloth than those in the London-centric Westminster bubble.
But former SNP head of communications Fraser MacDonald argues Burnham has “fallen at the first hurdle” after ditching his argument that Brexit was a disaster to say he would not attempt to take the UK back into the EU.
“He’s certainly capitalising on the fact Labour feel pretty lost just now and when you find yourself in a position as a party where you’re not getting a hearing from the public, internally things are a bit chaotic, and your ordinary membership is thinking ‘how can we survive?’, he’s used himself as a bit of a screen people can project themselves onto,” said MacDonald.
“He’s been able to read his party quite well, knowing that things aren’t going in the right direction and something needs to be done about it, and I think you can argue that’s quite astute.
“I think the problem under Keir Starmer is his pitch at the election was ‘get the Tories out’, it was very compelling, but there was no substance to what he was standing for, and there’s a risk for Andy Burnham that he’s saying the right things at the right time and then rows back on all these principles.
“He’s pitching himself as this principled guy, and I think that is playing well just now because people are looking for a saviour, but at the end of the day, when you get into power and you’ve got to be able to govern, you do have to have those values or people will be as turned off as they are with the current Labour Government.”
MacDonald argued Burnham would appear to be playing a similar “short game” to Starmer.
“You have to work out if you’re playing the long or short game. The short game is Starmerism, so ‘I’ll say what I need to say to people to get in the door and when I’m in the door I’ll work that out when I’m there’, or you have the long game of ‘these are my values and I’m sticking to them and what I’m saying might not be popular right now but if I can convince you over time, then I’m showing a degree of moral leadership’,” he said.
“It certainly looks like Burnham [is playing the short game].”
On Burnham's Brexit U-turn, he added: "I think people would give him more credit if he stood up and said ‘I know it’s not the popular opinion, but this hasn’t been great for the UK’. He’s just fallen at the first hurdle and he’s cracked under the first degree of pressure and I don’t think that’s a particularly good weather vane for where things might go in future."
Where is the ambition?
WHILE many may have come to view Burnham as bold and enterprising, faced with the scrutiny of the UK media, it would seem his level of ambition has already begun to shrivel.
In the past, he has been known as an advocate of electoral reform, but has now said he would not get rid of First Past the Post (FPTP) straight away arguing it needs to be in a manifesto. On the flip side, he maintains he wants to make changes to the electoral system to make politics “less point-scoring, more problem-solving”.
Former Labour NEC member Mark Seddon said he could not understand Burnham’s position.
“He appears to be saying we’ve got to fight the next election on First Past the Post, which carries this huge risk of a party [winning after] getting 30% of the vote, so I don’t quite get that,” he said.
“I would’ve thought you’d want to get the broadest possible agreement over defending the constitution and bringing about electoral reform because FPTP simply is not working.”
Meanwhile, after the bond markets appeared to react negatively when Burnham announced his intention to stand for election, he suddenly said he would stick to the current fiscal rules despite previously saying Britain should not be “in hock to the bond markets”.
Economist James Meadway said Burnham’s approach should concern supporters.
“Small movements in the government cost of borrowing have been backed up with some fairly breathless headlines about how worried bond traders are about a Burnham premiership,” he said.
“But the truth is that borrowing costs for governments across the developed world have risen in the last few years. Typically, borrowing is about five times more expensive since the pandemic. This reflects a general problem of higher inflation and higher government debt, which bond traders are responding to, far more than speculation about the next British prime minister.
“What Andy Burnham has done by confirming his attachment to the fiscal rules will, in reality, make not too much difference. But it’s intended to send a clear signal that he will not be changing very much, and that should concern his supporters.”
He added: “Burnham could accept the existing rules and be quite radical – introducing a wealth tax or nationalising water, for example. That is an option for him, but he’s yet to be very clear that he will take it up.
“The crises we are facing now, like the surge in energy prices and food prices from the Iran war, or the effects of climate change on the price of food, will require more bold ideas. I don’t see Burnham addressing these as yet, and he and Labour risk being overtaken by events.”
Seddon said he was not seeing the level of ambition: “The Atlee government came in when the country was completely bankrupt after the Second World War and was able to create a welfare state. We need to have that kind of ambition, which we don’t really see from him yet.”
Burnham has also said he “supports the broad thrust” of Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood’s immigration reforms to make it harder for migrants to settle permanently in the UK, suggesting he is happy to align himself to something described as “un-British” by his colleague Angela Rayner.
Where does he stand on Israel?
IT is also difficult to work out where Burnham stands when it comes to Israel and whether he would take a stronger stand against the genocide in Gaza.
In October 2023, weeks after Israel’s attacks on Gaza, he said there should be a ceasefire “by all sides” and called for captives to be released unharmed.
But over the years, Burnham’s position has shifted and he has links to Labour Friends of Israel (LFI).
In 2015, when he unsuccessfully ran for the Labour leadership against Jeremy Corbyn, Burnham told a LFI hustings event that he opposed anti-Israel boycotts, which he described as “spiteful”, and that his first foreign trip as leader would be to Israel.
He also said that the Balfour Declaration represented “an example of British values in action” and said that Israel is a “democracy that has a long history of protecting minorities and promoting civil rights”.
Genocide scholar Martin Shaw said Burnham has not done enough to allay fears that he is a supporter of Israel.
“You can maybe give Burnham credit for having called for a ceasefire before Labour did, but it’s marginal really, I think. He hasn’t shown us that he has a different attitude here,” he said.
“As mayor of Manchester, he hasn’t felt like he’s had to take strong positions on Israel and Palestine. He could’ve done, I think, and it would be interesting to know what the Palestinian community in Manchester feel about this.
“Israel is greatly discredited, public opinion has turned against Israel, public opinion recognises more or less that Gaza is a genocide, and […] if Labour want to make themselves more popular again, if they want to win back left-wing and Muslim and liberal voters, they need to shift on this.”
Shaw added: “Burnham hasn’t done enough yet to counter suspicions that he is still supportive of Israel. In the light of the genocide, many will be looking to him to make his position clear before they vote on June 18.”
