Andy Burnham officially becomes leader of the British Labor Party, replacing Starmer
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Andy Burnham was officially declared leader of Britain’s ruling Labor Party on Friday, clearing his final hurdle to taking over as prime minister next week.
The left-wing party has announced the result of the leadership contest to replace outgoing Prime Minister Keir Starmer, in which Burnham was the only candidate. Burnham received 379 out of 403 nominations for barristers in the House of Commons.
Starmer will remain prime minister until Monday, when he formally tenders his resignation to King Charles. The king will then ask Burnham to form a government.
“We’re going to give them hope back,” Burnham said in his first speech as leader. “This is a proud moment for me and my family today, and it’s emotional, but it’s what I’m ready for.”
Britain’s democratic system allows ruling parties to change leaders, including prime ministers, without the need for a general election. The next general election does not have to be held until 2029.
New prime ministers have come with increasing frequency in recent years. Burnham will be the UK’s seventh leader since 2016; five Conservative prime ministers preceded Starmer’s decisive victory in the 2024 election.
Promises to help struggling communities
Burnham, the former mayor of Greater Manchester, has been waiting for the prime minister for weeks, but has revealed few details about his policy priorities. He will arrive at 10 Downing Street little known to voters outside Manchester.
Although Burnham is considered one of the Labor Party’s best negotiators, he faces many of the same problems as his predecessor, including a sluggish economy, cost-of-living pressures fueled by the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East and stretched public services.
“I will work to create a new politics. The country is crying for it,” said Burnham. “How can politicians point fingers at each other when the standard of living is deteriorating and politics as a whole is not working for them? It annoys them and turns them off.”
Outlining some of his priorities as Labor leader, he said “you can have the courage to fix the big things that have been neglected by politics.”
He emphasized plans to focus on economic recovery, more public control of key sectors and the creation of new modern industrial jobs, saying Britain took “a series of negative turns in the 1980s” where “political power was centralized and economic power was privatized.”
That decade when Conservative PM Margaret Thatcher oversaw policies of privatisation, deindustrialisation and political centralization that transformed the UK economy.
“Slowly, sometimes inexplicably, over four decades, political and economic power has flowed out of our communities in every region and nation of the UK,” Burnham said.
Starmer announced last month that he would step down after two years in office marred by mistakes and lapses in judgment that have destroyed his position, his party and the public.
Labor has been trailing the anti-immigration Reform UK in opinion polls, while the ruling party suffered a disastrous result in May’s local elections, putting pressure on Starmer to stand down.
