Andy Burnham tells Labour: I’m your last chance

Andy Burnham was announced as the new leader of the Labor Party on Friday, promising “hope” and “change” – but warning his party “this is our last chance for change”.

Declaring that he was “ready to lead”, he called for unity to combat the “new right in British politics” in the party, which has been plagued by factionalism under Sir Keir Starmer.

Following concerns about the way Labor was pursuing Nigel Farage’s policies on immigration, he vowed to be “distinctly Labour” in his governing style, insisting that “we won’t try to leave the Greens behind, or leave Reform behind, or do what we’ve done in the past, put on too much Tory clothing.”

In his acceptance speech, which lasted nearly 40 minutes, he reassured fans: “I have a plan.” But he has offered little detail on what that plan is, beyond five promises about his leadership style, including promises to rewrite the economic consensus of the past 40 years and devolve more power to communities.

In an extraordinary admission, just three days before he is due to be confirmed as the new prime minister, his seventh in a decade, he admitted that he still had not decided who would take on senior ministerial positions in his government. He later confirmed he would announce his cabinet on Monday, insisting that announcing his top team before entering 10th would lead to “total chaos”.

The former mayor of Greater Manchester succeeded Sir Keir as Labor leader at a special conference in London after becoming the only candidate to receive sufficient nominations and receiving the support of 379 MPs and all unions.

With a sense of optimism in the room, Mr Burnham described his uncontested election as “the most significant moment of change in our politics in 40 years”.

But with Reform still ahead in the polls, he made clear Labor still had a long way to go and warned that the biggest enemy was factionalism and infighting.

“When we unite and put the power that comes from that unity at the service of the people and places waiting for politics to give hope again.

“We will do this to everyone. We will give them back their hope.”

Mr Burnham was elected just a month ago in the north-west constituency of Makerfield, where he successfully fended off the Reformation threat and emerged victorious with 55 per cent of the vote.

He promised to apply the “Makerfield test” to its forward-looking policies to ensure the government always takes into account the communities that are too often left behind in the UK.

In his speech, he addressed his voters and warned his party. “They gave us a fair hearing and then another chance, as the British public always do,” he said.

“But let’s be honest, folks, this is our last chance to change, and we must take it together, in unity.”

While Mr Burnham praised Sir Keir for putting Labor “in a position to change people’s lives” by winning the 2024 general election, he suggested he had left the country in a situation “unsuitable for working-class communities”.

Mr Burnham said forgotten places across this country were calling for “the return of the Labor Party they once knew”, adding: “We will be that version of the Labor Party again.”

He also attacked the party’s “wrong turns in the 1980s, when power was centralized and economic power was privatised”, and promised to devolve power from Westminster to give people “more power over the fundamentals of life”.

He asked the Labor Party to remember its own history, noting that it was their own communities that suffered the most during the Thatcher era, and that many of these communities were now turning to Reformation to bring about change.

“Political power was used brutally against them to protect vested interests. Economic power was brutally taken away by deindustrialization in the 1980s, as it was against so much of the country up and down, and let’s never forget: these are the very places that built this labor movement, this union movement, that we have today.”

The outgoing Prime Minister or most of his cabinet did not attend the event; Many of them may lose their jobs. Also absent were former prime ministers Sir Tony Blair and Gordon Brown; They were not mentioned at all in his speech as Mr Burnham rejected the economic legacy they adopted from Margaret Thatcher.

He thanked three veterans: former home secretary David Blunkett, who gave him his first ministerial job; He said former deputy leader Margaret Beckett and former leader Neil Kinnock inspired him to join the Labor Party.

But while Mr Burnham praised aspects of Sir Keir’s legacy, particularly with the passage of the Hillsborough Act to end public sector cover-ups, he made some harsh remarks about how his own would be different.

Notably, after the former Prime Minister faced controversy over accepting a director’s box at Arsenal for “security reasons”, he said he would keep his football season ticket and continue to sit there with fans, unlike Sir Keir.

But more importantly, Mr. Burnham promised an end to factionalism and “punishment of members who hold principled views that may differ from my own”; this was a reference to Labor MPs who were sacked over policy disagreements over welfare changes and jury trial reforms.

He said he wants to build unity by “respecting all shades of opinion” and said his cabinet would have a broad range of views.