The seventh prime minister of the decade: Britain is betting on Andy Burnham

Burnham, 56, who served for nearly a decade as the mayor of Manchester and is very popular with the British public, replaced Keir Starmer as the leader of the Labor Party last Friday, and today – after Starmer submitted his resignation to the king, and Burnham accepted the appointment from him – he was announced as the new Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.

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Burnham is the seventh Prime Minister of Great Britain in just a decade. He became prime minister within a few weeks, after the Labor Party’s defeat in the local elections in May, and after calls within the party grew to remove Starmer from her leadership.

Burnham was elected to the position without other contenders, and the result is that he is almost a “smooth page” in terms of the British public and the international community in terms of his policies. His positions on a number of issues are unknown, he has not had to face questions and investigations, and now he has been appointed to the high office, a decade after leaving national politics in favor of a term as mayor of Manchester. A survey carried out by a British media outlet revealed that 40% of the respondents did not recognize Burnham when they were shown a picture of him.

In his first public address at Downing 10 today, Burnham mentioned the high turnover of prime ministers and said it was a sign that politics needed to change. “Britain needs to show the world that we can regain our stability, and my generation of politicians needs to do that. I know the public is fed up with politics. We haven’t been good enough. We need to be better – and we will be better,” he said.

promised “economic breathing space”

Burnham, who contested in 2010 and then in 2015 for the leadership of Labor, lost and moved to serve as the mayor of Manchester about two years later. He is considered a “man of the people”, and in the conservative opposition he was accused of trying to “please everyone”. He has successfully led the northern city since 2017, and was elected to parliament last month when his course to replace Starmer was agreed by a majority of senior party officials. He is married, and has three grown children.

Economically, Burnham is considered more left-wing than Starmer, and leaks in recent days have suggested he intends to re-nationalise the National Water Company, as well as other infrastructure companies. However, his government is set to grant drilling licenses for oil and gas in the North Sea in a bid to secure cheap energy in the future, a position that Starmer’s government has opposed.

The identity of the finance minister Burnham chooses will affect the way the markets will react to the new government, and according to the leaks he aims to calm them down by appointing current interior minister Bana Mahmoud, who is considered a fiscally conservative figure, to the position.

One of the things Burnham has already announced he will promote is the decentralization of powers to local authorities. His first task for the British public will be to deal with rising prices, including energy, food and housing. He announced that he would focus on domestic issues, and less on foreign issues, and promised to “provide economic breathing room” for households in the United Kingdom.

In his speech today, Burnham said that Britain “took some wrong turns in the 1980s”, for which it is still paying today, including privatization, deindustrialization and more. He added that he intends to use government spending to make it easier for citizens, hinting at the nationalization of certain infrastructure services. According to him, he will present a “decade plan” for economic prosperity later this year, but noted that even before that he will present some “immediate steps” that will help people financially.

Burnham tried to reassure markets and said Britain would respect fiscal rules regarding a limited deficit, as well as its commitments to NATO in terms of defense spending.

Will he intensify the policy towards Israel?

Although he ignored them in his speech today, foreign affairs are still expected to play a critical role in Burnham’s tenure. One of his first decisions will be whether to continue Starmer’s authorization for American bombers to use British bases for attacks on Iran.

On the issue of Israel, Burnham faces a lot of pressure to toughen the policy vis-à-vis Jerusalem and the Netanyahu government, including a ban on trade with settlements and a tougher embargo on arms sales to Israel. He was previously a member of the Labor Friends of Israel Association and even promised to visit Israel as a “first visit” if he was elected party leader in 2015, but since then he has expressed more critical views towards Israel. He called for a ceasefire just weeks after the Hamas massacres on October 7, 2023, along with other mayors such as London’s Sadiq Khan.

In recent weeks, Burnham has criticized Britain’s “late recognition” of a Palestinian state. However, he said that he could not decide whether a “genocide” had occurred in Gaza, and that this was left to international courts.