Web desk(National Times)- Veteran UK politician Andy Burnham was confirmed as the new leader of the ruling Labour Party on Friday, and is now set to be Britain’s next prime minister.
“There being no other eligibly nominated candidate, it is therefore my honour to declare that the duly elected leader of the Labour Party is Andy Burnham,” interior minister Shabana Mahmood told a special party conference.
Burnham takes over from Keir Starmer, who resigned last month as premier after months of political turmoil, scandal and missteps.
Speaking in London after being formally confirmed as Labour leader and succeeding Keir Starmer, Burnham said he had not yet made up his mind about the composition of his top team.
“I haven’t made any decisions yet about who will be in that top team. But I will soon, and when I have, you will see it reflects all parts of our party, all communities,” Burnham said.
Centre-left Labour retains an overwhelming majority in parliament after the 2024 elections, so the leader of the largest party becomes the country’s prime minister, without new polls being held.
It is only four weeks since ex-Manchester mayor Burnham sensationally returned as a member of parliament following a nine-year absence, determined to replace Starmer.
On Monday, he will become the UK’s seventh prime minister in a decade, with Labour MPs betting Burnham is the party’s best chance of reining in Nigel Farage’s anti-immigrant Reform UK party, tipped in the polls to win the next general election, expected in 2029.
Nicknamed “King of the North” for winning three successive elections to the Greater Manchester mayoralty, Burnham’s flagship idea is devolving powers to other cities in a bid to fire up Britain’s economy, including by setting up a “Number 10 North” office.
He said the past four decades since “the 1980s have not been kind to the places that built our party, nor to the communities across the UK in rural and coastal areas. So we pledge today, to them, to be better.”
“If we want an economy and a country that works for all people and places… then it requires a new path to the one we’ve been on for the last 40 years,” he said.
The new party leader also said that he would be a pro-business leader of the Labour Party, saying his experience working with businesses as mayor of Greater Manchester would be a model for government.
“I will be a pro-business leader of the Labour Party, as I was a pro-business mayor of Greater Manchester,” Burnham said after being confirmed as the new Labour Party leader.
“We turn places round together, and that is the way we ran in Manchester, and we will take to the whole country,” Burnham added, referring to his record of working with businesses to drive economic growth in the region.
Burnham said that the government could not control inflation effectively without greater public control over essential costs, adding Britain needed to take a new economic path.
“If we don’t have sufficient public control over the cost of the essentials, how can we have control over inflation, public spending, and the rest of the economy?” Burnham said.
Burnham vowed to give “hope back” to the British people as he prepares to become the UK’s next prime minister.
He told a special party conference that “people and places… have been waiting too long for politics to let them hope again… We’re going to give them hope back.”
“I am for us, for all of us,” he told cheering delegates.
Who is Andy Burnham?
Burnham was born in Liverpool in 1970 and grew up in Cheshire. He studied English at the University of Cambridge and worked in journalism before moving to politics in his early 20s.
He first became MP in 2001 and held cabinet roles in former prime minister Gordon Brown’s government, before eventually standing down as an MP in 2017.
In that time, he ran for the Labour leadership twice, losing on both occasions.
Most recently, Burnham was mayor of Greater Manchester, a role he held from 2017 until last month. He drew praise as mayor for his work to transform the region’s transport system, and gained a strong reputation as a voice for the north of England.
He returned to Parliament a month ago in a by-election, with his victory over the right-wing party Reform’s candidate, convincing many Labour MPs he was the right candidate to replace Starmer.
Other senior Labour figures — such as former health secretary Wes Streeting — abandoned their own leadership ambitions and got behind Burnham, along with the overwhelming majority of the party’s MPs.
Burnham is married to Marie-France van Heel. They met while they were students at Fitzwilliam College, University of Cambridge, in 1989.
They have been married since the early 2000s.
Van Heel has worked in marketing and strategy for many years, notably for Sky, and has also been involved in the logo designs for the BBC and England Rugby.
The couple have three children — Jimmy, Rosie and Annie.
