The frontrunner to become Britain‘s next prime minister, Andy Burnham, vowed in a keynote speech Monday to “bring about the biggest rebalancing of power our country has seen” if he succeeds Keir Starmer.
Burnham, currently the only candidate to replace Starmer as Labour leader and prime minister, pledged to devolve greater powers to regional mayors, including in 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 the northwest English city, 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.”
Delivering his speech from a Manchester museum, Burnham described Britain as “one of the most over-centralized countries in the world”.
Should the veteran Labour politician continue to face no challengers to become prime minister, the former minister and ex-Greater Manchester mayor could be in the post as early as mid-July. Starmer announced his resignation last Monday.
Burnham would inherit a British economy that ruling center-left Labour vowed to revitalize when it won power after 14 years in opposition in 2024 but has so far struggled to deliver on. Growth showed signs of picking up until the US-Iran 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 meanwhile proposed the creation of a “No. 10 North” to coordinate the devolution — a play on words on the UK 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 program since the post-war period”. However, he did not set out how that would be funded, amid squeezed public finances in the UK. (AFP)
