Blairism in a Flat Cap: The Burnham Illusion

In violation of the constitutional conventions that Britain usually holds dear, Britain will endure a long, directionless interval following Keir Starmer's resignation on 22nd June. The election of a new leader, Andy Burnham, who was sworn in as MP also on the 22^nd June after winning the Makerfield by-election, is the likely replacement. If Burnham’s leadership bid faces no contest, he is likely to take over in the 17-20th July period, rather than in September, as some have speculated. 

There have been suggestions of attempts to persuade Labour MPs to stand against Burnham, which would delay his taking office until September. However, it is clear that right from the beginning, Andy Burnham had been the preferred pick of the powers that be for any hypothetical early departure of Starmer. While Wes Streeting was discussed among the chattering class and in media circles, it is unlikely he will run, particularly given that he chose to endorse rather than challenge Burnham. 

The entire event of Starmer’s departure and his replacement by Burnham was choreographed. What is actually happening is that the Labour machine, vested interests, and donors have recognised that the Labour Party is invariably unpopular in the polls, as evidenced by its dismal performance in the local elections. The only way, therefore, to ensure the continuation of the party’s existence is to manufacture a coup d'état in which party machinery and vested interests, concerned only with the preservation of the Labour Party, created the conditions whereby Starmer had little option but to resign. While it may be argued that Starmer was not forced out, considering that he purportedly resigned on his own volition, all indications point to his reluctance to do so up until the point it was announced that Burnham was going to become an MP. 

The event of an MP stepping down to allow an incoming MP to take their seat is not entirely unprecedented. For instance, Harold Macmillan resigned as PM in October 1963, after which the Conservative Party decided upon the Earl of Home, Alec Douglas-Home, to replace him. Having sat in the House of Lords instead of the Commons, he had to renounce his earldom and contest a seat which a prospective Conservative candidate withdrew from in order to enable him to stand instead.

However, Starmer’s resignation and Burnham’s entry to Downing Street were clearly planned as a last resort by the puppet masters behind the Labour Party. The decision to throw Starmer under the bus was not made lightly. He had, after all, faithfully executed the agenda the internationalist class required of him. He toed the line on Ukraine, squandering unspeakable amounts on an idealist project while his own nation suffers from underinvestment in its asylum system and endures minimal intervention on its own soil.

Moreover, Starmer has made the UK ever closer to the European Union despite Britain having voted to leave in 2016 and only formally or politically doing so in 2020, albeit the deal not living up to leavers’ expectations on fishing rights and in claiming an adequate level of sovereignty. For instance, membership of the UK-EU Trade and Cooperation Agreement (TCA) prevents the UK from taking full control of its rich 200-mile Exclusive Economic Zone for fishing, while the level-playing-field requirements of the Brexit deal constrain Britain’s regulatory freedom on environmental issues. 

The issue is not that the powers that be want Starmer to go because of these commitments. But rather, they recognise that the people who are suffering from the effects of mass immigration and the costs of net-zero policies amid an enduring cost-of-living crisis have cottoned on to Starmer’s fixation on foreign policy issues at the expense of domestic issues. Burnham is keen to avoid the 'Never Here Keir' epithet – earned after 42 foreign trips in 17 months – that came to define Starmer's distance from domestic concerns.

The question now is what Burnham can offer, given that he is likely to take charge of the office. Let’s not forget that this is an ex-minister from the Blairite era who will appoint Blair-era lobbyists to carry out his operation. He intends to retain the fiscal rules set by his predecessor. At the moment, Manchesterism appears to be a reheated version of Starmerism or, more pertinently, a Blairite agenda fixated on managed decline. 

Purnell, the CEO of Flint Global, one of the UK’s most elite lobbying firms, is likely to be Burnham's Chief of Staff. Interestingly, Purnell was also elected to Parliament in 2001 with Burnham, and became a cabinet minister under Blair. Perhaps Green Party Leader Zack Polanski is right when he recognises this to be a Blair and Starmer tribute act. 

Burnham’s reluctance to depart from the fiscal rules that Starmer set, and his decision to distance himself from his previous statement that we should not be in hock to the bond markets, suggest that his historic desire to renationalise swathes of our utilities may not be fiscally feasible. 

Even Burnham’s Blairite obsession with devolution and the decentralisation of power from Westminster, likely combined with regional investment, is something that Starmer could have easily taken out of the Blair playbook. This reaffirms the view that Burnham represents a frantic attempt by the Labour Party machine to conserve their regime by passing the baton to someone who is more charismatic and attractive to the public rhetorically, but, substantively in policy terms, will replicate the same detached globalist approach that will only lead the nation into further managed decline.

While Burnham has been sceptical about Starmer’s Defence Investment Plan, having objected to an outgoing PM making commitments that bind the successor, the pressure on him may mean he is likely to retain the establishment line on defence and Ukraine. A Starmer ally even said Burnham has to endorse the Defence Investment Plan, while an ex-British diplomat has argued Burnham will not be able to fix public services in Britain while doubling defence spending and continuing to funnel money into an unwinnable war in Ukraine. It is important to emphasise that Britain has a national debt of 94% of GDP and Burnham commits to the current fiscal rules. The fact that Burnham, described by the Council on Geostrategy as an ‘instinctive Atlanticist’, is expected to retain the NATO spending pledges regardless of the domestic cost implies that Starmer's globalist approach is likely to extend into the Burnham era.

The counterargument to this view of Burnham resembling continuity Starmer is that Burnham, like his predecessor, is notorious for shifting positions on policy issues in accordance with his career interests. For instance, until a few months before returning to Parliament, he said leaving the EU was an error, while rejoining was an objective. This became a politically infeasible position in the context of his by-election campaign, where he was running in a constituency that voted two to one in favour of leaving. Given that Burnham’s most senior ally, Wes Streeting, firmly supports rejoining the EU ‘one day’, it is likely that the progressive Remainerism that he historically exhibited could reemerge. 

Lastly, on the economy, Burnham will likely prolong Starmer's economic stagnation. Since 2008, the economy has flatlined, while figures that run counter to this are inflated by immigration-driven GDP growth and rising house prices. These are inadequate for portraying genuine productive growth. The increase in debt and the decline in living standards, along with property taxes, are likely to further repress growth. 

Burnham needs to understand the context behind the current economic malaise. Were the British economy to have grown at its 1970-2007 average rate after 2008, it would have been nearly 40% larger than it is today. The productivity growth in the UK has remained near 0.5% annually since the financial crisis, while business investment in Britain is among the lowest in the G7. Living standards have not declined for such a significant period since the era of the Napoleonic Wars, between 1798 and 1822. Pertinently, Britain has not experienced a comparable period of sustained real-wage decline since the early industrial revolution, while the average worker is £14,000 worse off per year than if their earnings had continued to rise at pre-2008 rates. 

While Burnham’s tenure as PM may represent a Blairite effort to maintain the longevity of the weakened Labour regime, there are changes that, were Burnham to embrace them, could help to turn the tide. Unlikely though that he will implement such policies, he could stop the blank cheque to Project Ukraine to generate fiscal space for productive investment at home, reverse the realignment with the EU in favour of meaningful trade deals, and implement tax reform to reignite entrepreneurial activity. This policy prescription, however, remains in doubt in the current political climate, in which powerful interest groups across the financial sector, public sector unions, and the civil service are strongly prejudiced in favour of the EU and are unlikely to embrace such a shift.

The last section of this article will focus on Burnham’s uninspiring track record in Manchester and beyond. While the mainstream media and left-wing circles depict Burnham as some great Messiah, this view, when inspected rationally, obscures reality. For instance, Burnham oversaw, as Health Secretary, the Mid Staffs Scandal, with 400 to 1200 avoidable deaths from poor care. He was also depicted by Maggie Oliver, the whistleblower who exposed Greater Manchester Police's Rochdale cover-up, as having 'turned away' from the crisis - missing, in her words, 'a huge opportunity to bring changes that are needed.' Former Detective Superintendent Pete Jackson, who met Burnham in 2018 alongside Oliver to raise serious failings at GMP, recalls that Burnham promised it would be 'the first of many meetings' - but was never seen again.

Even his alleged success in reforming bus services in Manchester appears overblown, with Andrew Gilligan in The Spectator noting that bus use was down 12% since he took office in 2017. Much of the success appears to be associated with Johnson’s £95 million grant to improve bus services and £1 billion in capital spending. Instead, Burnham decided against additional bus lanes, which led to slower journeys and half-empty buses. Burnham’s target to build ten thousand council houses by 2028, set in 2024, saw him, the following year, having started construction on only ten, which undermined the credibility of his recent pledge to implement the largest council house-building programme since the post-war period. Rupert Lowe’s amusing depiction of the soon-to-be PM as ‘Ghostbuster Burnham’ perhaps aligns with reality. 

In conclusion, then, the installation of Burnham appears to be a pre-orchestrated attempt by elites to preserve both the Labour regime and foreign policy efforts vis-à-vis Project Ukraine and alignment with the European Union. Substantively, the government is likely to exhibit Blairite qualities and is unlikely to pursue policy changes to reverse managed decline, while Burnham’s past makes his suitability for the PM position questionable.

Image: Wikimedia Commons (extract from flickr)/No 10 Downing Street (Lauren Hurley)

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