Who is Andy Burnham, the man tipped to be the UK’s next prime minister?

A week ago, Andy Burnham was not even a member of parliament. On Monday afternoon, news cameras in helicopters followed his every move as he took the train to London for what looked suspiciously like his coronation as the new UK prime minister.

He was sworn in as a mere MP – not the PM – to raucous cheers from his Labour colleagues and heckles from the Tories of “Rome is saved”, “he’s not the Messiah” and “water into wine”.

“Just a naughty boy,” he retorted, a Monty Python reference that had them roaring again. 

This is the state of desperation the Labour party has arrived at in the face of a surging populist right-wing party hoovering up votes in suburbs and regions, just two years after resigned leader Keir Starmer pulled off a historic landslide election win.

If this sounds like a story playing out closer to home, there are similarities but the lessons for the Albanese government might not be what you would expect.

How did we get here?

Britain used to look at European neighbours that changed leaders like seasons and laugh.

But Burnham looks set to become its seventh leader in just 10 years – an astounding pace even by pre-Albanese Canberra standards.

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UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer resigns as rival Andy Burnham eyes Labour leadership

Starmer looked to have put the years of Tory leadership chaos to bed when his Labour party swept to its biggest general election win ever in July 2024, picking up almost two-thirds of available seats.

But he quickly started sinking and eventually tanking in the polls, with discontent building for months. 

He has struggled to deliver promised economic growth, repair tattered public services and ease the cost of living, and has been hamstrung by repeated missteps.

The most high profile of these was his decision to appoint Peter Mandelson, a scandal-tarnished friend of Jeffrey Epstein, as the UK ambassador to the United States.

In May, Labour suffered its worst election result on record. They were council elections with no bearing on Westminster but sent a clear message that voters weren’t happy.

The rise of Reform UK

Farage has a long history on the hard right, having played a leading role in the Brexit campaign and leading short-lived populist anti-immigration parties UKIP and the Brexit Party.

But while he was a near-constant figure on the fringes, he lost seven House of Commons elections and byelections before finally claiming the seat of Clacton in 2024.

Reform UK has just four lawmakers out of 650 in the House of Commons and got about 14 per cent of the vote in last year’s national election.

But it seized a lead in the polls in the first part of last year and has held it, leading both Labour and the conservatives by more than eight points, according to The Telegraph’s poll tracker.

“On a human level, yeah, I’m sorry for the guy that he failed, but he did fail, and I think he’ll be upset, but I think the British public will be upset,” Farage told the BBC today, of Starmer’s resignation.

Opponents say Farage has demonised migrants and fuelled misinformation. 

In 2024, he inaccurately suggested police were withholding information about a stabbing rampage at a dance class that left three children dead. False claims that the attacker was an asylum seeker sparked days of rioting across England.

This year, he was accused of exploiting the death of Henry Nowak to create “grievance and division” after saying people should react with “pure, cold rage” to police who arrested him as he lay dying from a stabbing by a man who falsely claimed Nowak racially abused him. 

Why Burnham?

As Starmer foundered, one name came up over and over again.

But even though Burnham was a mayor, not an MP, and thus ineligible to become PM, Labour MPs seemed increasingly keen to hitch their wagon to the so-called “King of the North”. 

Starting in the late 1990s, the 56-year-old spent more than a decade in the House of Commons, including stints as a secretary of state, before a shift to local politics. 

He was mayor of Manchester from 2017, overseeing rapid regeneration for the city where the Industrial Revolution was forged, and is pledging to repeat his signature brand of “Manchesterism” on a national scale.

During the Makerfield campaign he said he understood voters were “fed up” and called the large Reform UK vote “a cry for real change” that Labour must heed.

Burnham was blocked from contesting a different byelection earlier in the year in a move widely seen as an attempt to stave off a leadership challenge.

He was effectively parachuted in when the sitting Member for Makerfield resigned last month just to let him run but the former mayor’s path to the House of Commons didn’t look like an easy one. 

The Makerfield area has elected Labour lawmakers for more than a century, but Reform UK has rapidly gained ground and won 24 of the 25 council seats up for grabs in local elections in the area last month.

Despite Labour’s dismal poll ratings and substantial losses in local elections in May, Burnham defied electoral gravity. 

He was able to see off the challenge from the Reform UK candidate and mop up votes from other left-leaning political parties, substantially increasing Labour’s share of the vote to nearly 55 per cent.

‘Like we are watching a prime minister’

Burnham’s trip to London on Monday was covered live in excruciating detail. Helicopters followed his train, which was late, before switching to his cab as he made his way to parliament.

Journalists and photographers mobbed him on the way on and off the train and talking heads lined up across news channels to weigh in.

“As he is whisked away towards Westminster it does feel … like we are watching a prime minister going to Buckingham Palace,” BBC senior news correspondent said on the station’s live coverage.

“This is the sort of occasion when we have the helicopter over London, watching the procession of a prime minister in a car, but of course we’re a little premature because we’re not even at that point.”

Burnham had earlier confirmed he would stand for the leadership, thanking Starmer for his service and pledging progress on “economic growth, cost of living, public services, housing and opportunities for the next generation”.

“His decision marks the beginning of a transition and it is important that this process is conducted in an orderly and responsible way. I will put myself forward as part of this process, he said, on social media.

“The country expects stability, seriousness and a continued focus on the issues that matter most and that is what it will get.”

Starmer said he had heard the voice of public opinion and the views of his party.

“I know the question being asked now is not who was best placed to change the Labour Party to take us into power and to begin the vital work for improving lives for millions of people. Those questions have been answered,” he said.

“The question my party is asking now is whether I am best placed to lead us into the next general election.

“I have heard the answer of my parliamentary party to that question, and I accept that answer with good grace.”

What happens next?

Starmer said he would stay in his post until his successor was in place and that Labour’s national executive committee would open nominations on July 9.

Should Burnham be the only candidate, then he could be confirmed as party leader a week or so later. 

If there is a contest, then the election would likely drag on into September but that is looking increasingly unlikely. 

He has won the support of Wes Streeting, who resigned as health secretary last month in a precursor to a leadership tilt but never pulled the trigger, seemingly unable to gather the votes while Burnham was still a possibility.

Streeting on Monday said he would back Burnham, saying “he can win the fight of our lives against the forces of nationalism”, a reference to Reform UK.

“We could spend the summer exaggerating small differences, or we can roll up our sleeves and help him to deliver the change our party and our country needs,” he said.

Other potential candidates include Starmer’s former deputy, Angela Rayner, who resigned last September over an unpaid property tax, and Al Carns, who quit last week as the armed forces minister over Starmer’s funding plans for national defence.

Neither has commented.

There are many in Labour’s ranks who say it would be best if no one stood against Burnham so he could enter 10 Downing Street this summer before the party conference. Burnham was tight-lipped on whether he’d prefer a coronation rather than a contest when heading for his train south to London from Manchester.

What does this mean for Labor and One Nation?

There’s an increasingly unpopular prime minister who’s struggling to ignite the passions of his followers after a thumping election win and a populist right-wing leader riding high on concerns about immigration and the economy.

The traditional centre-right party is facing an existential collapse in support as voters embrace a figure who seems to finally be cutting through after years on the political fringes. There are fears they’ll start taking votes from the left too and polls are even putting this populist outfit ahead of both mainstream parties.

While this scenario could describe either Australia or the UK, there are some key differences. For one, Reform’s polling lead is dominant in the UK while One Nation’s is at most a percentage point or two, with Labor still winning on a two-party-preferred basis. 

Labour figures see Burnham as a solution to a problem Labor also appears to be dealing with, but three Australian researchers argue his solution to democratic disenchantment could be summarised as “seeking to move the UK in an Australian direction”.

They paint Burnham as closer to Albanese, with his “organic and instinctive relationship with the labour movement”, noting while Starmer struggled, his Australian counterpart has “effectively maintained party discipline and support”.

“Both Albanese and Burnham openly discuss their Labo(u)r character,” Flinders University associate lecturer in public policy Jos Sunman, Flinders and University of Canberra postdoctoral research fellow Emily Foley and Australian National University senior lecturer Pat Leslie wrote, in The Conversation on Monday.

“Burnham invokes Everton Football Club, the Labour Party and the Catholic Church as shaping his worldview. 

“This is strikingly similar to Albanese’s ‘three great faiths’: the Catholic Church, the Australian Labor Party and the South Sydney Rabbitohs.

“For both Albanese and Burnham, labour politics is deeply personal and organic.”

The experts said Burnham’s victory presented a roadblock for Reform but also suggested a consolidation of UK politics into left and right blocs despite shifts away from the majors.

“The left has traditionally had higher rates of preference exchange in Australia,” they wrote. 

“Instead of cleaving to the centre, the Makerfield lesson for the Labor Party might be that the ticket to electoral success is to reconnect with traditional Labo(u)r values such as improved rights for workers, a strong welfare state and a commitment to fairness and equality.”

- Reported with Associated Press