Burnham before Reading
Andy Burnham isn't going to save the Labour Party. Perhaps nobody can.
In the 1970s sitcom The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin, the title character fakes his own death by leaving his clothes on a beach.
Reggie, played by Leonard Rossiter, does this because he’s tired of his boring, suburban existence and just wanted to start over again.
Andy Burnham is, similarly, bored of his humdrum existence as Mayor of Greater Manchester and has decided that he wants to re-enter Parliament. In the process, he’s discarding many of his political opinions and leaving them on the streets of Makerfield.
We’ve had Burnham deciding that actually it’s perfectly fine to be in hock to the bond markets, that Britain doesn’t need to rejoin the EU, and that he agrees with Nigel Farage on immigration.
All of these are typical politician’s pronouncements, with enough wriggle room to get him off the hook from truly committing to anything. Perhaps this is how to see Burnham’s latest promise —followed by a quick ‘clarification’ to look into compensation for WASPI women. Ducking difficult decisions for the sake of electoral expediency does, one has to admit, feel a little bit Keir Starmer.
Now even writing about any of this might be a bit premature, given Burnham hasn’t even won in Makerfield yet. Worse, that somehow noting these changes in position is perhaps in poor taste. Andy Burnham consistently polls as one of the most popular politicians in the country. He could be the only person who could realistically lead Labour to an election victory. Pointing out these flip-flops at this exact moment feels a little bit like being on the Titanic and complaining about the upholstery of the lifeboat. Yet it seems to me that we’re seeing the seeds of disappointment that will eventually bloom with the result that the Labour Party is rendered totally and utterly irrelevant.
Apparently things are positive on the doorsteps in Makerfield for Burnham, as are the polling and focus groups. That’s hardly surprising. It’s not exactly hard to beat your nearest rival if you’re a popular local mayor and they’re mostly known for their creepy sexual remarks about daytime TV presenters. Or if a special Question Time is organised and you happen to be one of the most polished political performers in the country. And let’s be clear about this: Burnham is a first-rate political performer who showed during Covid the ability to spontaneously connect with the emotions of the electorate. He has learned a lot since becoming Mayor and is a far better politician than when he left Westminster a decade ago. Two problems remain, however: that Burnham ducks truly difficult decisions, and the Labour Party is no longer a serious political outfit.
Look at the failure to bring in a Low Emission Zone for Greater Manchester, a decision that Burnham has continually kicked into the long grass before finally cancelling the scheme. Other cities such as Birmingham and London brought in the Clean Air Zone, as improving their horrendous air quality was worth spending their political capital on. Given the Defence Secretary resigned last week because the Prime Minister was unable to take difficult decisions, one does wonder whether Andy Burnham is what a focus group would design if they wanted someone like Keir Starmer—but northern.
Coming to the state of the Labour Party: in Makerfield it is currently in its comfort zone, of being able to campaign in a by-election. It reminds me of Jeremy Corbyn being happiest in the 2016 leadership contest, where he could get away from the horrible business of leading a party and return to what he enjoyed most: going round the country and energising Labour members.
This version of the Labour Party is moulded in Keir Starmer and Morgan McSweeney’s image. It is most comfortable when looking at spreadsheets of contacts, analysing the promise rates in different road groups, sending fundraising emails, printing WARP sheets for polling day, and coming up with a good squeeze message. What this iteration of the Labour Party is truly hopeless at is translating any of this campaigning zeal into thinking about the compromises and hard choices that are necessary when actually governing a country.
For instance:
If economic growth is your key priority, what happens when you refuse to do anything about the relationship with the EU which is the main obstacle for growth?
What will the consequences be of making promises to groups of voters that you know, in your heart of hearts, that you won’t deliver on?
If your political project is based purely on making your party “voter-focussed”, why do you consistently ignore evidence that the reason voters are deserting your party is that you copy Reform’s rhetoric on immigration?
Interestingly, where Burnham has not budged is on constitutional issues. And yet, when he talks about House of Lords reform it’s in the context of cutting the cost of politics. Another stupid idea from the Steve Reed school of messaging, where Labour politicians seem incapable of talking about why democracy might be a good thing but instead get obsessed over its cost.
Burnham is also still talking about bringing in electoral reform. Yet apparently Labour’s NEC is blocking coalition deals with the Greens. This is not the action of a serious political party who wants to get things done. And it certainly isn’t the action of a party that is serious about meaningful electoral reform, where you have to work with your political opponents rather than purge, block or deselect them.
I note in passing that it’s the same strategic geniuses on the NEC blocking Labour coalition deals with the Greens who also blocked Andy Burnham from standing for selection in Gorton and Denton. This opened up an opportunity for the Greens which Hannah Spencer took, and gave them momentum to take hundreds of more council seats because voters realised that voting Green was no longer a wasted vote. So you have a body which not only caused the problem but is now, ostrich-like, sticking its head in the sand and refusing to deal with the consequences.
Worse, it’s the action of a party which has still not learned the lesson that we live in an era of block-politics. There’s a left block of parties and a right block. Labour can only win by appealing to the left block and winning over those Reform voters on issues where its electoral coalition aligns, mostly on economics and cost of living. Instead, with laser-like precision, Labour has alienated every section of the electorate and now seems constitutionally incapable of winning any of it back. Too many are still stuck in a New Labour era of triangulation and a mythical centre ground, perhaps including former Blairite special advisor Andy Burnham himself.
Just to give one example of the consequences of this nonsense: a new academic paper highlights the folly of Starmer’s rhetoric on immigration. It finds that whilst his ‘island of strangers’ speech increased the salience of immigration as an issue, it made made no changes to Labour’s poll rating whatsoever. Worse, the speech caused a drop in Starmer’s popularity that was particularly marked amongst Labour voters. And even more egregiously, the paper presents evidence that Reform benefited from Starmer’s intervention. The academics conclude that echoing the language of the radical right raised the salience of immigration and shifted perceptions of Labour’s position, but had no positive effect on its electoral standing whatsoever.
Last week there were horrific scenes in Belfast and elsewhere. Thugs, incited by a social media platform run by a egotistical billionaire, firebombing houses and dragging people out of their houses if they have a different colour skin. Yet Labour politicians take no action to get off X, instead saying that maybe Ofcom might take action in two months time, and Anas Sarwar instead uses mealy-mouthed language like ‘people have the right to raise legitimate concerns, but…’. There is no accommodation that can be made with these people and yet Labour politicians seem unable to properly articulate the horror and moral outrage at what is happening.
I do not think that the Labour Party understands just how deep a hole it is currently in. Many assume these recent bad results are just a blip. After all, the party has come back from catastrophic results before and could do so again. I’m sure many in the Liberal Party felt the same way after 1923, or in the Whigs in the 1860s. Yet the failure is more profound than simply electoral arithmetic; it is one that reaches deep into the party’s soul, and its moral foundations. If Labour do not understand this then they are doomed to irrelevance, no matter what happens on Thursday.
I talk about another retro sitcom, Yes Minister, with Mark Pack in Political Fictions. The fact that it’s all about leadership plotting is entirely coincidental. Honest.
