Burnham – currently the only candidate to replace Starmer, who resigned as Labour leader and prime minister earlier this month – pledged to devolve greater powers to regional mayors, including the north-western city of Manchester, where until recently he was in charge.
“I am going to give Britain the circuit breaker it needs,” Burnham told an invited audience in Manchester, pledging to put power “in the hands of the people and places who can use it best.”
“We need a new determination to raise living standards of every single person in this land,” he added.
“And we must accept that to do that, to fix the economy and the country, we need to change politics and we need to do it now.”
Opposition leaders criticised the speech.
“He doesn’t have a plan beyond telling mayors to go and sort it out,” said Kemi Badenoch, leader of the main opposition Conservatives.
Robert Jenrick of the hard-right Reform UK party, which has led national opinion polls for more than a year, said the British public wanted “radical change now.”
“People can’t wait 10 years,” he told the GB News television station, after Burnham promised “a 10-year mission to raise living standards across the land.”
Delivering his speech from a Manchester museum, Burnham described Britain as “one of the most over-centralised countries in the world.”
Starmer, who became prime minister in July 2024 after Labour won an election landslide, announced his resignation last Monday.
If no challenger comes forward to replace him, Burnham could be prime minister as early as mid-July.
Burnham would inherit a British economy that ruling centre-left Labour vowed to revitalise when it won power in July 2024 after 14 years in opposition.
After a tough 18 months, growth showed signs of picking up until the Middle East war hindered progress and pushed up inflation.
Burnham used his speech to pledge fiscal discipline and to reduce the country’s ballooning welfare bill, having already sought to calm markets by committing to the government’s current borrowing limits.
He proposed the creation of a “Number 10 North” to coordinate the devolution – a play on words on the prime minister’s address at 10 Downing Street.
“We will create a more streamlined state with a clearer purpose: to power up all parts of the country and put a laser-like focus on growth and regeneration,” he said.
“The change will be driven through the prime minister’s office in an extended operation, based here in Manchester.”
He vowed that office would “oversee the biggest council house building programme since the post-war period.”
However, he did not set out how that would be funded, amid squeezed public finances in the United Kingdom.
Coining the phrase “Manchesterism”, which he defines as business-friendly socialism, Burnham has railed against trickle-down economics and neo-liberalism.
Among his more defined economic beliefs is greater “public control” over services like transport, water and energy, though he was vague on Monday on whether this meant full renationalisation of utilities.
Under Starmer, British railway operators were gradually re-entering public hands.
Burnham has positioned himself as a champion for small businesses and proposed cutting business rates for pubs and music venues.
“I will back our scientists, technologists, entrepreneurs, and creatives, as I have done here (in Manchester), and show how Britain will be the innovation nation of the next decade,” he said on Monday.
Rain Newton-Smith, head of British employers’ lobby group, the CBI, said “business leaders will be encouraged by efforts to use the levers of devolution to spread prosperity across the country.”
In the days since Starmer resigned, speculation has been rife about who Burnham will appoint as finance minister.
Rachel Reeves has served as chancellor of the exchequer since Labour returned to power almost two years ago, but reportedly faces the axe if Burnham takes office. (AFP)
