CORONATION or contest:  a hurdle for Burnham

The roaring debate on whether Burnham can be allowed the keys to No. 10 without the scrutiny of a contest has not escaped the Labour backbenches. Several figures are reportedly considering their options: Darren Jones of the Labour right, Al Carns, a former defence minister, and Angela Rayner, with her substantial political heft within the wider Labour movement, have all not ruled out putting themselves forward as candidates. The fight is not yet won for Burnham. Currently, all three of these figures would struggle to find 81 MPs to back their leadership bids, yet this could change, and fast. With greater transparency on Burnham’s plans for a possible premiership could come turmoil within the PLP. Consequently, a leadership contest could be triggered by an MP who took Burnham’s promise of “hope” to mean something entirely different to what he will outline in his impending speech on fiscal policy.  

 

This salient message of hope has fallen on Labour MPs starved of such a sentiment. Hope, however, can be taken to mean very different things. Hope is, sadly, not a coherent economic policy – ‘we will solve our gaping economic inequalities through the power of friendship!’ Different factions of the PLP may have taken Burnham’s message of hope to mean different things, and this is fraught with danger for Burnham. 

 

Burnham’s economic policy proposed to Makerfield was, in short, an end to trickle-down economics and confront neo-liberalism. This is an electorally popular stance in such areas, and more widely, 75% of UK adults believe that the Labour government is running the UK economy badly (YouGov). This suggests that Burnham will outline a visibly different economic approach. This may be Burnham’s diagnosis for the nation’s economic ills, yet he has no mandate to enact it in power. The Labour government was elected on a Starmerite economic platform; meaning strict fiscal rules and a far cry from traditional left-wing programmes of redistribution, nationalisation or tax-and-spend policy. 

 

Burnham cannot stray too far from this without his own mandate. He certainly can announce new measures, such as the nationalisation of water, for example, yet to bring the nation down a path away from neo-liberalism as promised, he needs a mandate. A significant, historical economic shift left cannot be outlined by Burnham in his speech on fiscal rules next week; it must wait until the next general election. This could frustrate Labour MPs on the soft left and those impatient for a swift economic change in direction. Thus, Rayner could find herself as the candidate of the Labour left, with Burnham left hamstrung by the fiscal rules central to Starmer’s mandate. This saga is certainly not over. 

 

For Burnham to enact the change he has promised, he needs two things. Firstly, he needs time – something our increasingly impatient politics seldom provides. Secondly, eventually, he needs a mandate of his own. Perhaps this points to Burnham changing direction slightly from Starmer’s mandate yet remaining committed to the key facets of his economic mandate, such as economic stability, a commitment to foster private investment and planning reform. Once Labour’s fortunes in the polls start to improve, a general election could be called, and Burnham can run on his own, more ambitious and transformative, ticket of tackling neo-liberalism and regional inequality.