Andy Burnham set to replace Keir Starmer as Britain braces for Labour shift

London,UPDATED: Jun 27, 2026 10:58 IST

Britain appears set for a change in leadership, with Andy Burnham poised to replace Prime Minister Keir Starmer after Starmer announced his resignation on Monday. Burnham, the former mayor of Greater Manchester, was sworn into Parliament hours later and is currently the only candidate to lead the Labour Party and the country. If no one else enters the race, he is likely to take over on July 17.

Burnham arrives with a more popular and approachable public image than Starmer, but he is also expected to be constrained, at least at first, by the centre-left Labour platform on which the party won power in 2024 and ended 14 years of Conservative rule. He is due to set out his economic vision next week as he tries to show how his leadership will differ from Starmer's without alarming markets.

His immediate challenge will be to succeed where Starmer struggled: reviving a sluggish economy, repairing strained public services and easing the cost of living. Burnham highlighted those issues, along with housing and opportunities for young people, in a post on X after Starmer said he was stepping down. "The country expects stability, seriousness and a continued focus on the issues that matter most and that is what it will get," he said.

How far Burnham can shift course remains unclear. Matthew Flinders, a politics professor at the University of Sheffield, said: "At the moment, Andy Burnham is being almost hailed and held up as a folk hero that will save British politics. The tide is changing and the big issue for Andy Burnham is that when the world suddenly moves against him and he becomes a folk devil, will he sustain the pressure?"

Burnham, who is widely seen as being to the left of Starmer within Labour, has said he will try to revive the economy without going beyond the government's existing spending and borrowing plans. That has helped reassure markets still unsettled by the reaction to Liz Truss's unfunded tax cuts in 2022. Mark Goodwin, a politics lecturer at Coventry University, said: "If you are a Labour prime minster from the soft left of the party, the markets don't need that much invitation to panic. They will start from a position of skepticism. So he'd have to be very, very careful." He added that Burnham would have to convince people that his leadership is different "without the markets reading that as This is too different."

Burnham promotes what has been called "Manchesterism", a business-friendly socialist approach that aims to draw in private investment for big projects while devolving more power over housing, utilities, transport and education. In a possible sign of how he may shift power away from London, he is reportedly planning to move part of the prime minister's operation closer to his home base, about 200 miles north of 10 Downing Street.

He has said he would not raise taxes on workers, keeping to a Starmer pledge, and has suggested easing the tax burden on businesses, including possibly reversing an increase in the levy employers pay to help fund pensions, public healthcare and welfare. Jill Rutter, a senior fellow at the Institute for Government, said the key question is how he would pay for his plans, whether he would drop existing priorities, and how he would meet pressure for higher defence spending. Starmer's government had pledged to meet NATO's target of spending 3.5 per cent of GDP on the military by 2035, but John Healey stepped down as defence secretary this month after complaining that Starmer was not moving fast enough.

Burnham may also face questions over foreign policy because he has less experience on the world stage. That could be a challenge in handling the so-called special relationship with the United States after President Donald Trump turned on Starmer. Trump this week described Burnham as a "town" mayor and said he had heard he was "extremely liberal" and probably would not expand North Sea oil drilling, one of his frequent complaints about Starmer.

Starmer had made cordial ties with Trump a priority despite their political differences, and secured a US-UK trade deal. But that also angered some of Labour's liberal supporters, and Trump later soured on Starmer after the British leader criticised his designs on Greenland and declined to join the Iran war. Burnham has not always been restrained in his criticism of Trump. After Trump's supporters stormed the US Capitol on January 6, 2021, Burnham posted on X that "any politician who gave Trump the time of day should be ashamed right now."

Rutter said Starmer won praise for his international role, especially in strengthening European backing for Ukraine, but was criticised by some for paying too much attention to foreign affairs. She said Burnham may prefer a different approach and could hand some of that work to an experienced foreign secretary. "I don't think Andy Burnham will want to be never-here Andy in succession to never-here Keir," she said. Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper said on Wednesday that she had spoken to Burnham about policy and that "he's 100 per cent behind our unwavering support for Ukraine" and "is a fundamental believer in NATO and in our shared deterrence and in the multilateral partnerships that we have."

One of Burnham's early tests will be to present a clear story about where he wants to take the country. Flinders said that suits Burnham's communication style and the popularity he has built as an amiable northern everyman who prefers T-shirts to suits, plays football for fun and is known for DJ battles featuring 1990s music. So far, Burnham has tried to keep expectations in check. If he proves himself in office and survives the remaining three years before the next general election, he may then be able to put forward a more ambitious programme.

Burnham has spoken about reshaping the political system, including replacing the House of Lords with an elected senate and bringing in proportional representation. He has also said he would like Britain to rejoin the European Union in his lifetime, though he stepped back from that during his campaign in a constituency that voted heavily for Brexit. Summing up that path, Flinders said: "My sense is that he will take some time, sensibly, to build up his team, his narrative, his story and his connections in order to then try to secure a public mandate and the next general election to then approach the more radical phase that he wants to deliver, which is exactly what Margaret Thatcher did in the '80s."

With PTI Inputs

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