25.06.2026
Meet the new boss, same as the old boss
Sir Keir was not a total failure. He did a ‘good job’ in thoroughly marginalising the Labour left. But will Andy Burnham be any different? Unlikely, given the objective conditions, says Carla Roberts
In the end, it was all rather quick and relatively smooth. Having promised for weeks that he would not resign and would certainly not go without standing in a leadership contest, Keir Starmer effectively handed over the reins to Andy Burnham on June 22 - with “good grace”, as he said, though he couldn’t help deliver a small ‘fuck you’ in the process by denying Burnham’s wishes to take over at Labour Party conference in September. Instead, Starmer’s timetable means Burnham will have to take over in less than three weeks’ time - prime minister number seven in 10 years.
Only the most foolish commentators (and there are a few) have argued that Starmer’s resignation represents some kind of ‘fall from grace’ for the oh-so-popular prime minister - did he not win by a landslide in 2024? Well, yes, but this was very much an anti-Tory vote, not a pro-Labour one - and certainly not some kind of ‘mandate’ for the policies of Keir Starmer - what policies? It is very hard to remember anything in particular the man has achieved or even set out to achieve. He was very much an empty vessel - just what the ruling class needed after the disastrous misleadership of the Tories. A relatively safe pair of hands, leading the ‘second eleven’, but nothing more than that.
He could not even deliver on that, due in large part to the dire worldwide economic situation. Somebody with a bit of charm or personality might have been able to paper over the cracks a little while longer. Burnham certainly has that, as he showed when he was being sworn into parliament, answering a loud Tory heckle, “He is not the messiah!”, with a quick-witted “But I’m a very naughty boy” (in reference to the famous Monty Python sketch). It remains to be seen if there is more to him than that - his serial back-peddling on a number of political issues certainly makes that more than questionable (more on this below).
While Starmer was just about able to plead ‘plausible deniability’ over the appointment of Peter Mandelson as US ambassador despite failing the official vetting process, he could not talk himself out of the dismal Labour results in the May 7 local elections and the ongoing electoral threat from Reform, which has been leading in the polls for many months. Over 200 MPs were apparently prepared to publicly call on Starmer to go. The coup against him was not as sharp or as vicious as the attempts to get rid of Corbyn - but it had become clear that the Parliamentary Labour Party had turned against Starmer. No wonder: many of them feared losing their jobs at the next general election.
It is certainly a risk to get rid of the party leader. A reversal of fortunes is not guaranteed, as the merry-go-round at the top of the Tory Party has shown. But Andy Burnham’s overwhelming victory in the Makerfield by-election was the last push many of the MPs needed - and the final nail in Starmer’s coffin. The media too was firmly behind the campaign to get rid of him.
The leadership contest, which starts on July 9, will be a mere formality. No other MP is likely to put themselves forward - if they do, they will get trounced. It is also very unlikely that Burnham will call a snap general election. Rightwing papers like the Daily Mail may pretend that they care about the “democratic deficit” and that he has “no mandate” without an election, but this is very unlikely to happen. Yes, there is already something of a ‘Burnham bounce’, giving Labour a lead in some polls for the first time in many months.1 But Burnham’s honeymoon period is likely to be very brief and he knows it. Calling an election would be far too risky and could hand the premiership to Nigel Farage.
Labour left
Despite all of that, it would be wrong to describe Starmer’s tenure as an outright failure - he ‘succeeded’ in one important aspect: he got rid of Jeremy Corbyn, successfully moved the Labour Party back to the centre and forced out hundreds of revolutionary socialists by proscribing a number of organisations, including Labour Party Marxists and Labour Against the Witchhunt (both involving CPGB members). John McDonnell MP is the perfect personification of the dire state of the so-called Labour left.
In an interview with the Radio Times, he gushes: “The way in which Andy has conducted himself is very traditional, he wants Labour to be a broad church again and to unite the party. If his cabinet becomes such a broad church, made up of people from the left, the right and the centre, allowing real debate, that would be so refreshing.”2
The man has become an embarrassment - and his wish may well come true. Would it not be super-“refreshing” if Burnham heeds Wes Streeting’s “progressive capitalism” letter begging to be made chancellor? Ed Miliband seems to have no chance, as both “the markets” (ie, the ruling class) and “the unions” (ie, Unite’s Sharon Graham) do not like his ‘net zero’ plans. And Burnham is keen not to spook either, being perhaps an almost perfect centrist. In other words, he is keen to be seen as a loyal servant of capitalism who will not rock the boat too much.
He wants to represent the “Labour mainstream”, as his campaign of the same name puts it in rather waffly terms: “a vision of hope, a popular, principled and practical left politics for meaningful change. Radical realism is the belief that big change is possible.” What “big change”, exactly? Nobody knows. ‘Mainstream Labour’ describes itself as “soft left” and is financed by the centre-left groups, Compass and Open Labour.
But there is very little in terms of concrete policies left in Burnham’s arsenal - he said he wants “the biggest programme of social house building since the second world war”. On the other hand, The Telegraph reports that “Burnham has reassured MPs that he wants to give the ministry of defence (MoD) more than the £13.5 billion offered in the defence investment plan.”3 Let us see what he goes for when the issue is put most bluntly: military or social housing. We can take a guess.
In any case, Burnham will not be able to do very much - even if he wanted to - thanks in large part to the dire world economy. He will struggle just as much as Starmer and will want to avoid raising taxes too much or doing anything else that drives even more people into the arms of Reform.
He represents a change of façade, perhaps a slight move towards the ‘soft left’ - but most certainly not a change of political substance. Add to that the massive political pressure he now faces from the establishment media not to ‘do a Corbyn’ and you can see why he has been folding quicker than a house of cards.
As an aside, that is exactly why Corbyn has absolutely no chance of getting back into the Labour Party, as ‘suggested’ by McDonnell. Diane Abbott, perhaps - she is now a rather harmless ‘grand dame’. But Corbyn will have to stay out and he knows it. He complains on social media that there is a “strange lack of policy” in the leadership debate and says Burnham “must offer real change”. What, like Corbyn’s Your Party? That is just as devoid of any policies, if not more so - and, come to think of it, it is also entirely devoid of democracy, transparency and, soon enough, a membership, thanks to Corbyn’s misleadership. He does not want Your Party to turn into anything beyond a loose network, because he is, at heart, still a Labourite who believes in a national parliamentary road to socialism. He would rejoin the Labour Party at the drop of a hat, if he was invited. But he will not be.
On the other hand, by positioning himself even slightly to the left, Burnham will have probably delivered the final deathblow to Your Party. It might limp on for as long as Corbyn can keep it up, but it is finished as any kind of alternative project. As for Mainstream’s waffle, it really does not sound too different from the empty slogans that YP puts out - or, for that matter, the Green Party.
Both Polanski and Burnham are made from the same populist cloth and are prepared to ‘adjust’ their views according to how the wind blows. Both certainly excel at talking a vaguely left talk and we suspect that the growth of the Greens will - at least - come to an abrupt halt, if not a marked reversal. While this is not yet massively reflected in the polls and we do not expect a mass influx into the Labour Party, there will no doubt be tens of thousands who will now switch their allegiance from ‘our Zack’ to ‘our Andy’, at least in the ballot box. After all, Labour has the advantage of being in office, so in theory Burnham could at least affect some minor changes, notwithstanding the obvious limitations imposed on that by a capitalism in decline.
Under Burnham, a Labour-Green anti-Reform coalition is starting to look like a real possibility - which Jeremy Corbyn MP would no doubt be all too happy to prop up, in the name of ‘stopping fascism’. Such a coalition would certainly have the (implicit) support of the Socialist Workers Party, which demands that “anti-racists should celebrate” the election results in Makerfield - because stopping Reform beats everything else:
Makerfield shows Reform can be beaten. Nigel Farage poured huge resources into the by-election, but he was beaten back and defeated. Hundreds of Stand Up to Racism supporters helped make that happen - distributing over 30,000 leaflets, speaking to voters and challenging Farage’s attempt to pose as the voice of working class people. This is a result anti-racists should celebrate.4
Yes, we might have voted Labour in Makerfield too, given the lack of an alternative. But the SWP is in effect celebrating because it helped to make Andy Burnham prime minister - despite the fact that he has promised to continue the ‘hostile environment’ policies of Keir Starmer - which has, of course, helped to lead to the rise of Reform UK and Restore Britain in the first place. It is just that those two parties do it better and louder.
Once upon a time (ie, a few months back), Burnham did criticise the government’s draconian changes to the immigration system, but he has since accepted them and also seems to back Shabana Mahmood’s latest plans: that the changes to ‘indefinite leave to remain’ (from five to 10 years) should be applied retrospectively to all foreigners. And, while he previously called for migrants on visas to be able to access welfare payments, he has now backpedalled on that, too. The pressure from Reform to be even tougher on immigration will lead to more ‘compromises’, we predict.
The sorry state of the SWP and the rest of left inside and outside the Labour Party really underlines what is sorely missing today: a principled Communist Party worthy of the name, with democracy and transparency at the heart of it, with the right to form factions and where differences are not seen as a problem, but an opportunity to discuss and debate. Such a party could actually present a real political alternative to the rotten system and the misleaders in Reform, Labour and the Greens.
Adjustments
Burnham has famously ‘adjusted’ other key policies, too: he has rowed back on his speech at last year’s Labour Party conference, where he said he hoped “Britain would rejoin the EU”. He has also broken his promise to “stand by” Women Against State Pension Inequality and now says women who have suffered such inequality will not get any compensation. Having previously said that trans women should be able to use women’s toilets, he now supports the Equality and Human Rights Commission’s finding that ‘woman’ refers only to biological sex and he supports the implementation of all of the EHRC’s recommendations.
He is and will no doubt remain a very loyal ‘friend’ of Israel: he joined Labour Friends of Israel in 2015, has said that the first place he would visit as Labour leader would be Israel and opposes the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement as “spiteful”. No doubt he will continue Starmer’s campaign to equate anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism, while keeping stumm about the ongoing genocide in Palestine (which he refers to as merely “disproportionate destruction”).
It also remains to be seen which - if any - of the “10 radical constitutional changes” he will implement, which he outlined in his 2024 book, Head north: a rallying cry for a more equal Britain, co-written with Steve Rotheram (metro mayor of the Liverpool city region): “We need nothing less than a complete rewiring of Britain”, Burnham wrote in his part, explaining why “constitutional changes are first-order issues”.
The bulk of their “10-point-plan” focuses on a “written constitution and a basic law”, “a federal UK through full devolution”, and a “reform of the voting system” by doing away with ‘first past the post’ and introducing a “form of proportional representation which could combine a regional list system for the election of MPs and a constituency link”, similar to the system used in Scotland. It all sounds quite interesting at first glance - but, as always, the devil is in the detail.
He does not touch on the issue of the monarchy, but wants the House of Lords ‘reformed’. His main issue with it is not that the Lords are not elected, but that:
55% of those in the Lords who were willing to state where they reside said they lived in London, the south east and the east of England. How on earth can we build a sense of national unity and fairness for as long as that remains the case? We should be ashamed if we let the unelected Lords continue into the 2030s. There is simply no excuse for it.
He demands that the upper house is “replaced with a proportionally elected second chamber, based on a list system. Ideally it would be as simple as asking the public to cast two votes at the general election.”
Needless to say, communists are against the idea of second chambers altogether. Those ‘checks and balances’ are there to circumvent the will of the representatives elected to the commons. In addition, Burnham’s proposal makes no sense - why would you need to vote for two chambers, at the same time - especially if his plan for PR includes a regional aspect anyway. But it will certainly be interesting to see if he dares call for the replacement of the House of Lords, once he is Labour leader and prime minister.
Much of the book is written through the lens of Burnham and Rotheram as leaders of the so-called ‘Northern powerhouse’. For example, Britain’s
unwritten and murky constitutional arrangements have had the effect of hoarding power in a small number of hands. Because there are no written rules, everything is done through negotiation. But they are never equal negotiations. What chance does a local council have negotiating with the might of the Whitehall machine?
In Burnham’s view, “power is concentrated” - but not in the hands of the billionaires or the capitalist markets. No, “power is concentrated in SW1 0AA. Ministers are able to do different deals with different regions based on the different relationships they might have.”
The whole chapter on ‘a federal UK through full devolution’ focuses on “English devolution” - and concretely, “elected mayors everywhere”. Communists are in favour of devolving power downwards, with as much local autonomy as possible. But Burnham wants to concentrate this power in the hands of little regional Bonapartes like he used to be. Mayors are the most undemocratic form of elected local governance.
He almost entirely ignores Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland and makes no mention of the real democratic deficit that exists there (which is why we as communists call for a federal republic). Burnham, on the other hand, wants to
encourage Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland to pass down more of the devolved powers they hold to their towns and cities. In Scotland in particular, power has been drawn out of its regions up into the national level. This can be seen, for instance, in the centralisation of the police and fire services. If we can imagine a world where Greater Manchester and the Liverpool City Region can collaborate with a Greater Glasgow with similar powers, it would make the UK a more practical, positive place.
Obviously, under socialism, people would run the services in their own communities and replace the police with a popular militia - but, needless to say, that is not what Burnham has in mind. He basically wants every city and/or region to be able to do their own thing - under capitalism - including running transport systems and railway infrastructure. And at least some of it, no doubt, with the help of private capitalist companies.
It does not take a genius to work out that for some things this level of localism makes absolutely no sense. When it comes to the railways, for example, centralised decision-making is absolutely crucial - what if city A introduces trains that do not travel on the tracks ordered by city B? What if their timetables are not coordinated? And what about the collective bargaining agreements of the unions? - they would presumably have be ‘devolved’ too.
Plus, he wants the mayors to be able to “raise additional local funds”, which means that areas with more businesses and richer residents would be able to raise more money. This localistic kind of approach is likely to actually make matters worse for poorer areas. But they would make life rather easier for slightly better off areas like, say, oh, Greater Manchester.
Federal UK
Throughout the book, Burnham “looks for inspiration” at “modern Germany, [which] stands as a model of nation-building. Britain’s ancient, ad hoc arrangements, by contrast, have taken us to a very divided, unequal place”. His basic thesis is that after World War II the allies may have divided Germany into two different states “in a bid to prevent a future concentration of political power in Berlin” (true), but this division was the actual reason that Germany became the European powerhouse (false) - especially after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, when the unequal living conditions between east and west were mitigated by a massive redistribution of funds from the west to the east. Rather embarrassingly, he writes: “When the Berlin Wall fell in 1989 … to ensure a perception of fairness, and build a sense of unity, Germany decided to add a Basic Law - or Grundgesetz - to its written constitution. The Basic Law stipulates that there must be ‘equivalent living standards’ between all of the German Länder.”5
Err, no. The Grundgesetz is simply another word for the German constitution that was introduced in 1948. He means what was first called the Solidarpakt and is now entitled Ausgleichsgesetz (compensation law). It includes a 5.5% income tax called Solidaritätszuschlag - which everybody had to pay until 2020 (now it is only higher earners). Unsurprisingly, Burnham does not mention how deeply hated this extra tax remains to this day.
As an aside, it is sheer nonsense to claim that it was Germany’s federal structure that helped to make it into Europe’s leading economy - and not the massive investment by the US through the Marshall plan, to make West Germany into a strong bulwark against the neighbouring Soviet bloc. If anything, Germany would arguably have done even better economically had it been a centralised state (something that Marx and Engels argued for). There is no democratic deficit that explains why Germany has to remain divided into 16 states. Burnham also ignores that in recent years the German economy has tanked rather spectacularly, thanks in no small measure because of the Ukraine war.
He keeps on using the phrase, ‘German basic law’, in this entirely wrong sense of the word, throughout the whole book, to basically argue that London, and the south-east in particular, should be made to hand over more money to the less well-off regions. When he talks about “levelling up” and “rewiring Britain”, that is what he means - regional redistribution of funds. It remains to be seen if the ‘king of the north’ keeps this up, once he is running the whole country - which, of course, relies on tax revenue from the City of London and the south-east in particular.
The 10-point plan also includes the call for “the removal of the whip” - because, you see, poor Andy was “traumatised” when he was an MP:
My worst experience in parliament was undoubtedly the vote in 2003. It was traumatising on every level. I voted for the [invasion of Iraq] - that is matter of public record. What people might not understand is just how trapped we felt as MPs in making a simplistic, binary choice about something as huge as taking military action in another country.
And yet, 139 of Burnham’s fellow Labour MPs managed to make a different “binary choice” and put two fingers up to the three-line whip imposed by Tony Blair. We doubt Burnham would really do away with it, once he is prime minister.
He will want to play the ‘sensible centrist card’ for as long as possible. That centrism is reflected in the two ‘economic advisers’ that Burnham has apparently turned to. There is the incredibly annoying and very popular Youtuber, Gary Stevenson, who became a millionaire by working as a high-stakes interest rate trader for Citibank and whose sole “common sense message” consists of the call for a wealth tax. But The Guardian reports that because Burnham is “conscious of the need to reassure investors”, the position of chief economic advisor is likely go to Jim O’Neill, who served as a commercial secretary to the treasury under the Tory government of David Cameron and spent the majority of his career as the chief economist at Goldman Sachs, where he came up with the ‘Brics’ acronym. Maybe Burnham considers watching as those two tear chunks out of each other and then supporting whoever wins. Or maybe their positions aren’t as far from each other as a first look suggests.
His appointment of James Purnell as chief of staff gives another indication of where things are going: Purnell used to run Labour Friends of Israel and was until recently chief executive of Flint Global, a lobbying firm that counts BP, Amazon, Jaguar Land Rover and Uber among its clients.
In other words, Burnham is positioning himself way to the right of where Starmer stood when he succeeded Jeremy Corbyn. Granted, Starmer was lying through his teeth when he promised he would “continue Corbyn’s economic programme” - but nevertheless, many on the Labour left believed him - or pretended to.
One thing is for sure: all those proclaiming the Labour Party ‘dead’ have been way off the mark. It will, at least temporarily, recover, reflecting the at least residual working class attachment to the idea of a workers’ party. Quite clearly, the Labour Party remains what Lenin described as a “bourgeois workers’ party”. That does not mean we have any illusions that Burnham (or Corbyn, for that matter) will ‘deliver socialism’. But Labour is still an arena of the class struggle.
Although the pathetic tears of joy shed by John McDonnell over Burnham’s victory in Makerfield show how weak it currently is, the Labour left may also regain ground under his leadership. It is important that socialists and communists seriously engage with the Labour Party and neither dismiss it nor uncritically prop it up.