london —
Some people call this a “Barnum bounce.”
Public support for Britain’s ruling Labor party has soared since Andy Burnham, the former mayor of Manchester, took office this summer as the seventh prime minister in 10 years.
But optimism alone won’t solve the problems that plagued Burnham’s predecessors, including immigration, the economic fallout from the Iran war, and rising geopolitical tensions.
Mr Burnham is under intense pressure this week to show he has solutions to these problems at his first Labor Party conference as prime minister, with his far-right Reform UK party narrowly trailing Labor in opinion polls.
On Tuesday, he gave an impassioned speech ranging from the pitfalls of Brexit to reforming Britain’s creaky public services and social security system, earning him several standing ovations from party members. Mr Burnham said: “I am breaking away from the direction of the past 40 years and setting Britain on a new path, building a new economy and a new politics.”
So what are the key hurdles Burnham must overcome?
sandwiched between left and right
Nigel Farage’s British Reform Party is trailing Labor by a narrow margin in opinion polls, despite facing allegations over its finances in recent months. This is something Farage pointed out recently when Burnham ruled out the possibility of an early general election.
“It’s clear Andy Burnham doesn’t want the general election story to overshadow the Labor Party conference,” Mr Farage wrote on X Friday. “We are ready for elections whenever reforms are called for.”
Reforms have lost some momentum following a series of damning financial scandals, the most recent of which triggered a criminal investigation into political party donations. Reform officials deny any wrongdoing and say they will “fully cooperate with the investigation.”
But the populist anti-immigration party, which won big victories in England’s local elections earlier this year, poses a clear threat to Burnham, especially as anti-immigration sentiment has surfaced in some parts of the country.
Earlier this month, large anti-immigrant protests erupted along parts of Britain’s coastline, with hundreds of balaclava-wearing demonstrators blocking roads and clashing with police, scenes Burnham described as “unacceptable”.
He told the BBC on Sunday that it was “something we’ve never seen before in this country”, but acknowledged there were “serious concerns about immigration in every part of the country”.
Meanwhile, the Prime Minister will have to win back progressives who have defected to Starmer’s Labor Party after left-wingers defected from Starmer’s Labor Party over the Greens’ stance on issues such as net zero and the conflict in Gaza.
The Green Party’s threat will be put to the test next week when its leader, Zak Polanski, faces an election to become the next MP in London’s Holborn and St Pancras constituency, which Starmer held for more than a decade.
Mr Burnham also faces challenges from pro-independence parties in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.
Mr Burnham said on Tuesday he was “absolutely determined” to prove Scotland’s first minister wrong when he claimed on the day his father died that he would be the last Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.
“This is not to seek sympathy or criticize John Swinney. I don’t think he knew the news at the time,” said Burnham, whose father Roy died this month. “The United Kingdom that my father represented is what I believe in: a union of nations.”
In his first weeks as prime minister, Mr Burnham announced a number of policies targeting Britain’s economic woes, including cutting bus fares and lowering business rates for pubs and music venues.
Those pledges were dismissed as frivolous by some of his challengers, and on Tuesday Mr. Burnham released new details about his policy plans. These include plans to overhaul Britain’s increasingly overburdened social security sector by introducing a new system of “all contributes, all covered”.
The economy will be at the forefront of this year’s conference, which comes just weeks before the new chancellor is due to table Burnham’s first budget, setting out her approach to taxation and spending.
Mr Burnham cited Brexit as a factor in Britain’s economic decline, saying it had “done more harm than good”.
Recently, the conflict in the Middle East has also taken a toll on the British economy. Mr Burnham vowed earlier this month that he would make “difficult decisions” on the economy after rising energy prices pushed up inflation.
He also spoke of the “resilience” of the UK economy. “It will be difficult because of the difficult situation around the world, especially in the Middle East, but we will consider all of this carefully.”
Burnham secured the support of 379 of 403 Labor MPs and entered 10 Downing Street with a large crowd of supporters.
According to British media reports, the atmosphere within the party remains tense and there is a lack of desire to criticize the new leader, but there is clearly growing opposition in some quarters.
Ahead of the Labor Party conference, Peter Kyle, Mr Starmer’s business secretary, said the government was not focusing enough on economic growth and needed to act with “more urgency”.
Asked by the BBC if there was enough focus on growth, Kyle said: “I don’t think so, and that’s not a criticism. It shows the potential we have as a country and as a government.”
He said the government needed to be “as keenly aware of the need for economic growth” as it was to eliminate negative social effects such as sleep deprivation, a pointed reference to a key pledge Mr Burnham made in his first speech as prime minister.
Meanwhile, Housing Secretary Angela Rayner, who was Labor’s deputy leader under Starmer until she resigned in 2024, claimed that changes to visa rules affecting foreign social care workers were planned.
This prompted Burnham’s culture secretary, Lisa Nandy, to appear on the radio to express support for her boss.
“Frankly, I think the reason we changed leaders earlier this year was because we all felt that people needed to see the changes in their lives sooner that we promised in 2024,” she told the BBC.
The prime minister added: “I look forward to change and am thinking deeply about the changes our country needs.”
Mr Burnham has also faced opposition from grassroots labor groups over the government’s stance on the Gaza conflict, with some calling on him to ban arms sales to Israel and introduce “widespread” sanctions against the country.
As mentioned above, Burnham has already withdrawn the idea of holding an early general election.
He said last week: “There will be no elections for the time being. I will concentrate on my job as prime minister and do what I promised to do.” As it stands, the next election must be held by August 2029.
A landslide victory would cement Mr Burnham’s power and give him the authority he needs to push through the policy changes he set out to make in his early days as prime minister.
Failure to hold a general election could lead to accusations of weakness, as was the case with former British leader Gordon Brown. After a strong start to his tenure, things went downhill for Brown, who avoided a widely expected general election in 2007. The Conservative leader at the time, David Cameron, described the move as a “humiliating retreat”.
But with Reform and Labor vying for the upper hand, an early election could also risk drawing attention to Labour’s support, which has declined in opinion polls since the 2024 election.
Burnham is therefore in a sort of Catch-22 situation regarding this decision.
“Labour is in the lead again. But are we in a situation where it would make sense for Andy Burnham to go there any time soon? Absolutely not,” John Curtis, a political science professor at the University of Strathclyde and a leading pollster, told Times Radio on Thursday.
At least for now, it’s clear which option Burnham wants to take.
Mr Burnham told the BBC: “The time has come for a line to be drawn, for the country to look forward and come together and for people to feel some hope in life again.”
“That’s what I’m trying to do, and I want to take it even further in the next period, rather than pushing people back into the election cycle.”
