Andy Burnham, likely Britain's next prime minister, promised Monday to shift power from Westminster to local leaders and relocate part of the prime minister's office to Manchester — but he'll inherit the same fiscal straitjacket and defence spending pressures that brought down Keir Starmer after just two years.
Burnham, the former mayor of Greater Manchester, said the move would be a "circuit-breaker" for the sclerotic British state and part of "the biggest rebalancing of power our country has seen." He pledged to create a new government office in Manchester, dubbed "No. 10 North," to oversee regional development and become "the nerve center of a rewired Britain," with regional mayors getting more power over housing, welfare and education. He said growth "can only be nurtured from the bottom up."
The Fiscal Reality
Burnham won praise for revitalising Manchester during his nine years as mayor, but he hasn't served in a U.K. government for almost two decades. He'll face the same political and economic challenges that sank Starmer: a sluggish economy, tattered public services and a cost-of-living squeeze. He'll also be constrained by the platform the centre-left Labour Party was elected on in July 2024, with its pledges not to increase taxes on working people. That leaves little room for the transport, housing and infrastructure investment he's promising.
Opposition Conservative Party Chairman Kevin Hollinrake said: "Andy Burnham's big idea is to shuffle power between politicians. Not fix the welfare system. Not cut the taxes strangling working families and British business. Not fund the defence our country desperately needs."
Defence Spending Pressure
The U.K., like other NATO countries, is under pressure to dramatically increase defence spending to counter a more aggressive Russia and less reliable United States. The government's long-awaited defence investment plan, which sparked the resignation of Defence Secretary John Healey 18 days ago, is expected to be published before a NATO summit in Turkey 8 to 9 days from today. Starmer's successor will be expected to stick to the commitments in the plan — commitments that will compete directly with Burnham's domestic spending ambitions.
Burnham gave the speech at the People's History Museum in Manchester, the city where he spent nine years as mayor. He said his approach, dubbed "Manchesterism," would harness private and public money to invest in transport, housing and infrastructure, create new industrial jobs and better educational opportunities, and reform the U.K.'s inefficient and expensive privatised water and energy utilities. He said: "If councils can't fix potholes, what chance do they have of bringing forward major regeneration schemes to get growth going?"
Can Manchesterism Scale?
The Institute for Public Policy Research, a left-leaning think tank, said Burnham is right to focus on "rebalancing Britain." IPPR Executive Director Harry Quilter-Pinner said: "The U.K.'s concentration of power and opportunity in Westminster has held back growth, productivity and living standards for too long." He added: "The real test now is delivery."
Matthew Flinders, a politics professor at the University of Sheffield, said replicating Burnham's Manchester approach nationally would require "a fundamental shift" in the way politics is done in Britain. He said that would mean moving from "a very traditional, elitist, centralised model of politics toward something that is in many ways far more European, far more based on power-sharing in order to develop long-term policymaking capacity."
Burnham is the strong favourite to replace Starmer, who announced his resignation 7 days ago. Burnham won a special election for a seat in Parliament 11 days ago and was sworn in as a lawmaker 7 days ago, the same day Starmer announced that he will resign as soon as a successor is chosen. Burnham is so far the only contender in the Labour Party leadership contest. If no one challenges him, he'll become prime minister 21 days from today.
Burnham will be aware that Starmer also announced a 10-year mission — the equivalent of two full terms in government — soon after he was elected in a landslide in his second year in office. Starmer is leaving after two years in office marred by missteps and judgment errors that eroded his standing with his party and the public.
Why This Matters:
Burnham's devolution agenda is popular in theory, but it collides with Britain's most urgent fiscal reality: the country can't afford both domestic regeneration and the defence spending NATO expects. The 2024 Labour manifesto locked out tax rises on working people, leaving Burnham with the same impossible choices that destroyed Starmer's premiership. Devolution won't fix the welfare bill, won't fund the military, and won't restore competitiveness to an economy strangled by high taxes and regulatory drag. If Burnham replicates Starmer's mistake — promising transformation without identifying where the money comes from — he'll face the same fate. The NATO summit 8 to 9 days from today will force his hand on defence. Everything else depends on whether he can deliver growth without the fiscal tools to do it.