If Starmerism sought to present the Labour government as more rightwing than it is, Burnhamism seeks to do the opposite.
The change in rhetoric is certainly stark. Unlike his sulking predecessor, the new prime minister offers both an analysis and a vision. British stagnation and decline, Andy Burnham correctly told the House of Commons, can be explained by a series of “wrong turns” taken from the 1980s onwards: the privatisation of economic power, the deindustrialisation of the country and the ruinous austerity that followed the 2008 crash.
The solution, Burnham suggests, is public control of the essentials, the devolution of power and the rebirth of industry – to rebuild living standards and the economy and give long-abandoned communities a future. Keir Starmer, by contrast, had no vision, relying instead on a technocratic image of competence that was swiftly shattered by one fiasco after another. That left him defined by his opponents, and the electorate baffled as to where his government was headed.
The Starmer project foregrounded all of the government’s reactionary elements and buried its social-democratic features. Stringent fiscal rules, the assault on the winter fuel allowance, the attack on disability benefits, the construction of one of Europe’s most punitive asylum regimes, the arrest of pensioners who opposed Israel’s genocide: all became headline policies by design.
Now consider what they shouted least about: the semi-nationalisation of the railways, the creation of the publicly run Great British Energy, modest improvements to workers’ and renters’ rights, and some progressive taxation measures, such as hiking capital gains tax.
That was for a reason: defining itself against the left was the core strategy of Starmerism. When, in opposition, Starmer committed to retaining the Tories’ two-child benefit cap – even though it plunged hundreds of thousands of children into poverty – his advisers believed, as the journalist Andrew Marr put it, that “the public will notice him standing up to the left”.
Starmer junked the radical policy commitments he made to become leader and claimed Labour had gone “from a party of dogma to a party of patriotism” and “from a party of protest to a party of public service”. Labour voters defected en masse to Zack Polanski’s Greens, first in the Gorton and Denton byelection and then in June’s local elections. Starmer’s strategy of insulting progressive voters and their values succeeded in plunging Labour into an existential crisis.
Burnham, then, takes the opposite tack, having understood that, in the Britain of the 2020s, the left is a significant political constituency that Labour must appeal to, rather than wilfully alienate. He bemoans the Starmerite purge of leftwingers, such as economist Faiza Shaheen and former Labour mayor Jamie Driscoll. He sells himself not as a factionalist but as “a Labour politician that’s about unifying people”. Notably, when Jeremy Corbyn asked the prime minister a question about rent controls in the House of Commons, Burnham called the expelled former leader “my right honourable friend”: by parliamentary convention, “friend” is reserved for members of one’s own party.
The presentation has certainly changed. But what about the substance? When he stood in the Makerfield byelection in June, Burnham said that public ownership “is what should be done” in the case of Thames Water. Last week, he backtracked: “I’ve deliberately talked about public control rather than necessarily nationalisation.”
It is certainly true that “public control” has been his preferred formula. It allows voters – who overwhelmingly support nationalisation – to believe it means public ownership. But as he told Newsnight this year, it could mean anything from “much tougher regulation” to “public ownership”. That simply allows the existing approach to be rebranded.
During his byelection campaign, Burnham demanded that the government’s £39bn Affordable Housing Programme be entirely reserved for council and social housing. In office, his government allocated 40% of the first £10bn tranche to other types of housing – continuity with his predecessor’s approach.
Before his victorious return to parliament, Burnham had backed a £500,000 cap on donations to political parties. In power, he has U-turned.
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While just a few months ago, Burnham had said he had “long been persuaded” by the case for a land value tax, and proposed it as a replacement for the “iniquitous” council tax, as prime minister he declared: “That won’t be happening.” He has already embraced fiscal rules that block the investment needed for resource-starved public services and infrastructure.
Burnham apologised for Labour’s positioning on Gaza, but notably only for its record in opposition. He avoided stating that Israel had committed war crimes, with all the legal obligations that would impose on the government. His new foreign secretary, Ed Miliband, now touts sanctions on illegal settlements in the West Bank, but these are small, piecemeal measures that avoid imposing tough measures on Israel itself.
If vibes are your thing, then Burnhamism is a political sensation. Alas, what should matter is the substance. Our prime minister is correct that Britain took a series of wrong turns from the 1980s onwards. The logical conclusion arising from that is that the country needs a new economic model. Burnham has traced the path that led Britain here with admirable clarity. What remains unclear is whether he is prepared to leave it.
