That Labour has pushed out Keir Starmer instead of waiting for Nigel Farage to be his replacement is good. Being both sanctimonious and untrustworthy, both ineffectual and control-freaky, has discredited Starmer beyond repair.
That the replacement is taking place through a “coronation”, and that the left Labour MPs in the Campaign Group are not daring even to try to get nominations for a contest, is bad.
In 2007 Gordon Brown replaced Tony Blair as Labour leader and prime minister in a “coronation”, and that didn’t go well. Getting, say, 70% in a vote gives you credit. Getting 99% or 100% makes you look like a North Korean ruler.
The question was never whether Labour was likely to get a new leader who would hand down better policies from the top. No such leader was likely. Even at the 2025 Labour conference, when Burnham was talking left, the joke circulated. “A Blairite, and a Brownite, and a Corbynite, walked into a bar. The barman said: ‘Hello, Andy’.”
Bur maybe Burnham would be, or could be made to be, less control-freaky? With an effort from below, it may be possible.
He can still be pushed to open up Labour conference to real debate, and respect its decisions; and allow local Labour Parties to choose their own parliamentary and council candidates unimpeded.
Democracy
Burnham says that he will stop the use of the party whip system “to create fear or close down debate” among MPs. But the party is much more than the MPs.
He says that he “will build an inclusive team at the very highest level so that all parts of the party... can see themselves reflected and represented in it”; but also that “the political direction I set is not up for negotiation”. Negotiation? Excuse us. What about discussion and democratic decision by the whole movement?
Burnham has talked of the “biggest council house building programme in the post-war period”. That is good. 245,160 new council homes were built in 1953. The latest official statistics show 42,433 housing starts in the year to April 2026, with just 4,280 for “social rent”, and meanwhile council homes are still being lost by “right to buy” and demolitions.
But he offers no detail.
He also says he is for greater public control by regions of water, housing, energy and transport. Good, but again no detail.
TheTimes journalist Patrick Maguire, who is not left-wing but not naive either, has described Burnham’s “No.10 in the North” gimmick as a new variant of the (failed) 1964 venture of a “Department of Economic Affairs” to countervail the Treasury and expand public investment. But we don’t know.
The main change since February, when Labour’s leaders blocked Burnham from standing in Gorton and Denton, is that Labour’s right wing have decided that Starmer is hopeless, and that Burnham is their “unity candidate”. They probably think they can make Burnham even more right-wing than Starmer, and a bit better-presented. They won’t be wrong unless we prove them wrong.
Unions
Sadly, pressure on Burnham from the right has come not only from right-wing MPs and apparatchiks, but also from two big unions, GMB and the supposedly-left Unite, both pushing him to increase military spending and fossil-fuel extraction.
Slightly more hopefully, TUC general secretary Paul Nowak, a right-winger, has called for “wealth taxes on the richest... raising the vital revenues we need for our public services”.
Andrea Egan, general secretary of the big public services union Unison, has said that Unison “needs to see... massive public investment and everything brought back in-house. Major sectors back under national public ownership, not just publicly ‘controlled’ or regulated a bit more actively...
“Ending the attacks on migrants and protecting our hard-won freedoms. And... investing in our schools, hospitals, councils, transport, our communities”.
Solidarity will amplify and assist the efforts of the rank and file to make the Labour-affiliated unions and the local Labour Parties fight for working-class policies and for reopening the channels of Labour democracy.
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