Two thumping election majorities, less than two years apart, that both saw their victorious principals proclaiming a new dawn of change. On the face of it, there is a world of difference – and intent – in the victories of Andy Burnham last night in the Makerfield byelection and the man he hopes to supplant as prime minister, Keir Starmer, when he won the general election in July 2024.
“We did it! You campaigned for it, you fought for it, you voted for it, and now it has arrived. Change begins now”. These aren’t the words of Andy Burnham, basking in the warm afterglow of a 10,000 majority in Makerfield that saw Labour beat Reform by 20 percentage points. Oh no. These are the words of Keir Starmer as he spoke to the nation after a landslide general election on the morning of 5 July 2024. And we know how that ended up.
Last night, as he concluded his victory speech, Burnham said that there were many places in the country like Makerfield, where people felt forgotten, neglected and as if the system does not work for them. “And that changes tonight,” Burnham said. “This result changes that. This result will bring about a country that works fairly for everywhere and for everybody.”
He went on: “People here have voted for change. They voted for more power for the north and everywhere forgotten by Westminster. They have voted for hope. Now let’s give that back to them,” said Burnham. Heady words that will find an echo amongst the millions who long for real change in Britain and who desperately want to see a change of political course that will resign the toxic racism and hate-mongering of Reform to the stinking rubbish tip of history.
However, as we know, fine words butter no parsnips. It’s only concrete actions that can get the job done. So, now for a reality check – and maybe some awkward facts – for those currently blinded by electoral cretinism in the wake of Andy Burnham’s big win up north.
As readers of The Left Lane will be only too aware, we retain a justifiable scepticism about the bold Andy and the likelihood of him ushering the real change needed to cut the ground from under Reform and transform Labour. And we are right to be sceptical. A man who owes his very seat to a former MP, Josh Simons, who was a key part of the factional Labour Together cabal that organised the culling of the left from the Labour party and which still counts hundreds of Labour MPs as its supporters, has, at the very least, some serious questions to address.
Will Burnham deliver? The portents aren’t good
For all Burnham’s talk of “change starting here”, vague promises of public ownership and taming the power of the City of London and the financial markets, not to mention his often-stated belief that for “the past 40 years Britain has been on the wrong path,” he now has to deliver and make a difference. The portents are not good so far.
Apart from Burnham being in hock to Labour Together (has he done a deal with the devil?), there’s the problem of his flip-flopping over the bond markets, his vacillation on electoral reform, his apparent willingness to entertain the return of the political undead like David Miliband and others yet to resurface from the failed days of New Labour.
Many people are also rightly dismayed and angry about Burnham’s failure during the byelection campaign to call out a genocide in Gaza. Oh, and don’t forget, he also says he welcomed the broad thrust of home secretary Shabana Mahmood’s immigration changes. And that’s before we even get to his past record on benefit cuts, the Iraq war, PFI and the health service when he was a minister in the Tony Blair government. We could go on.
At the end of the day, the only way to make real change in this country and to remove the economic and social conditions that have created the political climate for the rise of the far right is, to remove the economic and social conditions that have created the political climate for the rise of the far right. It’s a simple and as complicated as that.
As Unison general secretary Andrea Egan said speaking to her annual conference this week, Labour needs to change course completely and break with its neoliberal economic approach if it is to avoid handing the keys to Nigel Farage at the next general election and start transforming Britain in the interests of the majority and not the entitled few.
She’s got a point – and she’s not the only one to say this. Numerous progressive economists, historians, socialist critics, commentators and ordinary working-class people up and down the country say the same thing. Andy Burnham cannot say that he hasn’t been warned.
On a night when there were also two other byelections north of the border, perhaps it’s best to end by quoting the words of the great Scottish poet and lyricist Rabbie Burns, who memorably once said: “The best-laid plans of mice and men, often go awry and leave us nothing but grief and pain, instead of promised joy!”
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