Andy Burnham: a ‘soft-left’ visionary or a Socialist Corbynista clown in disguise?

As the news cameras panned to Buckingham Palace to watch as Andy Burnham arrived to become our seventh gallant leader in ten years, I was shocked to see that vast crowds seemed to be milling around the gates of the palace, seemingly just to catch a glimpse of the King of the North (Andy Burnham’s regnal name). As it turned out, they were merely watching the change of the palace guard.

So, when Mr Burnham finally arrived the ritual had finished and the touristy crowd was rapidly dissipating, save for a few angry and manifestly unemployed ‘Rejoin-EU’ campaigners waving a drooping banner for their cause as Burnham’s Range Rover swooped past.Yes, the vanquishing of the stale and stodgy Starmer from Downing Street is no doubt one of Burnham’s greatest achievements, but it maybe his last. He expects an extensive degree of loyalty from his Labour MPs which he certainly did not give to Starmer.

Unfortunately, Burnham’s hypocrisy doesn’t end there. Despite calling for an immediate election in 2022 during the defenestrations of Johnson and Truss, Burnham has, like Saul on the Road to Damascus, had a dramatic conversion.

Burnham now says that in his case there is no need for an election because he will be fulfilling Starmer’s 2024 manifesto. You may be scratching your head to remember what was in Starmer’s lifeless 2024 pamphlet. I don’t blame you. There was hardly much in it, except for a key promise to stick to fiscal restrictions.This creates immediate tension in Burnham’s ‘plan’ for Britain. How can the new Prime Minister hope to, as he says; ‘end Neo-Liberalism’ and overturn the political settlement that has existed since the 1980s without breaching Starmer and Reeves’ fiscal rules? Moreover, who voted for this? Putting these two immense questions aside for a moment, I shall first comment on the Burnham cabinet, which has been applauded for its apparent moderateness and soft-leftism.

What is the ‘soft-left’ of which Burnham is the now the standard bearer? It is one of the Westminster-speak buzzwords for a politician on the left of the Labour Party, but who isn’t a loony Corbyn sympathiser. The ‘sensible’ left. A cocktail of compassionate social democracy mixed with an occasional and reluctant overture to big business. We can see members of this clan in figures like Angela Rayner, newly returned to the cabinet in her old role as Housing Secretary and Louise Haigh, who shall be acting as the PM’s Darth Vader, cutting down internal opposition. John Healey is the Chancellor, a surprise given the centrist Shabana Mahmood was tipped for the job. Healey is a New Labour veteran and seems pretty dull and unthreatening, a perfect person for Burnham to have by his side since it makes a betrayal less likely.

I shall applaud both him and Burnham if they can genuinely get to grips with the big issues facing the country, such as the £400 billion welfare bill, though Burnham seems to be more focused on ‘ending Neo-Liberalism’. Returning to the two big questions, Corbynism, the alternative to Neo-Liberalism, was rejected both in 2017 and 2019 by the British people. For it to be foisted on the country by Burnham, without a mandate, that would be a grave undemocratic injustice.