‘It’ll wind some people up’: What Burnham’s northern fixation says about his future plans

A.As Sir Keir Starmer’s premiership draws to a close, a modest social club on the outskirts of a former mining town has become the nerve center of Labour’s revival.

Stubshaw Cross Community Club, north-east of Ashton-in-Makerfield, was hosting Andy Burnham’s by-election campaign at the beginning of the summer.

The choice of a traditional Labor club as his campaign headquarters showed what the then mayor of Greater Manchester wanted to achieve as he sought something more than the seat of Makerfield.

This soon represented Labour’s return to its base, reconnecting with voters who had traditionally formed the core of its electoral coalition but had abandoned the party in local elections a few weeks earlier.

The club is a far cry from Islington’s now-lost Granita restaurant, where Tony Blair and Gordon Brown are said to have reached a gentleman’s agreement on leadership and set about rebuilding Labor in their own image in 1994.

“He does politics and symbolism very well,” Patrick Hurley, the Labor MP for Southport in the North West constituency, said of Mr Burnham’s campaign base.

“To run the most important by-election campaign of the last 100 years under the auspices of a Labor club in Lancashire – that says a lot and says a lot about where Labor is going next,” he said Independent.

“It speaks volumes to the fact that we’ve regained some of our old tempo under Andy. I think the people for whom we were founded as a political party and a movement to defend and work for recognize that.”

Mr Burnham used his first week in office to announce a range of policies designed to offer people and hospitality businesses such as the Stubshaw club “breathing space” from the cost of living crisis; this was a move that was unsurprisingly welcomed by the Parliamentary Labor Party.

Polls have suggested that the party is also experiencing something of a ‘Burnham bounce’, with More in Common narrowing the gap with Reform to as little as two points in the latest figures.

Promising the most significant political change in almost half a century, the new prime minister, who is plotting to “restructure Britain” and shift power from the nation’s capital to its regions, has seen his own personal approval rating rise to plus 13, higher than Sir Keir’s has ever been.

“What Andy is pointing out is that you can’t just run a country from Westminster and Whitehall,” Mr Hurley said.

“You can’t just sign a piece of paper in your office on Downing Street and suddenly the country changes for the better. This is painstaking, hard work from the bottom up.”

According to Mr Hurley, the Stubshaw Cross club represents this base and he believes Mr Burnham is much more comfortable with them and understands them better than his predecessor.

He said: “One of the campaign slogans in Makerfield was ‘If we stay together things will get better.’

“This showed me the difference between Andy’s approach and the approach of Labor governments over the last 30 years.

“The slogan in ’97 was ‘Things can get better.’ There’s a feeling that things are going to get better, that progress will be the guide whether you like it or not, and as the working class of the Midlands and the North, all you have to do is sit back and progress will be made available to you.

“Andy’s vision for things to get better depends a lot on the collective, it depends more on him saying things will get better if we stay together.”

A northern cabinet and a northern outpost

“The London team has been doing this for a very long time,” Mr Burnham said in an interview with the party. Observer during the midterm election campaign.

He has since appointed, perhaps tellingly, a cabinet made up of MPs from Greater Manchester, Merseyside and Yorkshire.

Steve Rotheram, mayor of Liverpool City Region and a close friend of the prime minister, said of Mr Burnham’s apparent relegation of Labor to the north: Independent at the beginning of this month: “There’s no doubt about it; it’s going to get some people pumped up.”

But according to his former mayoral colleague, the new leader is only using the “broad church” that Labor is so proud of.

“It doesn’t matter if you left school at 16 with a few formal qualifications or were lucky enough to go to Oxbridge,” he said. “The party should attract everyone if they have the same values.

“Andy has Labor values. He wants what’s best for people and he wants the country to prosper, but he also wants to take people along and tackle some tough issues.”

At the center of the northern revolution is Number 10 North, the Prime Minister’s Manchester outpost, which he has said will be the “conduit” through which he will redistribute power across the UK.

“The days of Whitehall resisting devolution are completely over,” the Prime Minister said ahead of his first meeting there on Friday, promising it would shift influence away from Westminster and Whitehall by “giving more power to every postcode across the whole country”.

Mr Rotheram hopes to benefit from its proximity to Liverpool.

“I think Andy’s position is totemic in terms of what he wants to do with Manchesterism and grow it,” the mayor said. “But its function will be more important than its geography.

“If suddenly it was realized that instead of always going down to SW1 and talking to the government, you could go down there and talk to the government, that would be really helpful.”

It’s no surprise that the Prime Minister is focused on the city he once ruled. He also invited Donald Trump to his old venue when he hosts the G20 next year – but does this mean Manchester is now Britain’s second city?

West Midlands mayor Richard Parker rejects the suggestion that the rise could harm Birmingham.

“To be really clear, Andy Burnham is now the prime minister of the country and can only succeed if the country succeeds,” Mr Parker said. Independent.

“The best way I can do that is by working with him to make sure the West Midlands succeeds, and that’s my priority. I’m really positive about devolution and the impact the prime minister has had so far in his days in office.”

“I won’t be stuck with No 10 North,” he added. “It exists to deliver growth, investment and prosperity to our regions and I see that as a really positive.”

Mr Parker believes Mr Burnham’s championing of devolution and his commitment to a very different approach to his predecessor were the main reasons for his rise to the nation’s highest office.

“Andy was pretty open about it. [a different focus from Sir Keir]”And actually I think the reason he became prime minister is because of that projection or that focus and recognition,” he said.

‘A somewhat urgent Labor government’

In Mr Rotheram’s eyes, Mr Burnham’s political talents contrast more than his politics with the man who will return Labor to government in 2024.

The mayor criticized the previous administration’s communication but believes his friend can fix it.

“Andy can relate,” he said. “With Andy as leader, we will be able to get out on the doorstep and try to tell people how Labor could change people’s lives under Andy Burnham’s premiership, using messages we haven’t been able to connect with before.”

For Mr Hurley, the management’s approach in the first week underlines why Labor insiders are daring to raise their hopes, albeit cautiously.

“This is a Labor government with little urgency that has unfortunately failed to act in the last six to 12 months,” he said.

“My criticism of the previous prime minister came with a lot of good intentions but I think often lacked the sense of urgency that was needed.”

“Keir had a bad start. Some of the decisions the No 11 made in the first six months were less than optimal.

“But he also gave a speech in the Rose Garden in Downing Street in August 2024 – he had been there for about six weeks – and said: ‘Things are going to get worse and things are not going to be as good as you want them to be.’ It eased people’s winds a bit.

“There is cautious optimism and hope here under Andy.

“He’s not blind, he’s not naive. He knows full well that this is going to be an incredibly difficult thing for us to do for the country.”

“But if we unite slowly, step by step, everything will get better.”