Andy Burnham’s in-tray: The challenges facing the new UK PM
Andy Burnham will become Britain’s next prime minister on Monday, with huge challenges and opportunities. Andy Burnham, who becomes the United Kingdom’s next prime minister
Andy Burnham will become Britain’s next prime minister on Monday, with huge challenges and opportunities. Andy Burnham, who becomes the United Kingdom’s next prime minister on Monday, faces a roster of challenges as the country’s seventh leader in a decade. Burnham was overwhelmingly backed as Labour leader on Friday after current Prime Minister Keir Starmer resigned last month. It has been a whirlwind month for the former Greater Manchester mayor, with his vision for the country and his cabinet still unclear. “This has gone faster than he thought. It’s only been four weeks since he won the by-election. I don’t think he knows all of the answers yet; he hasn’t had the thinking time,” Sunder Katwala, director of the British Future think tank, told Al Jazeera. Experts say the incoming prime minister will inherit an economy that has barely grown in two decades and a challenging geopolitical environment. He also has to deal with a marked decrease in Labour’s popularity, with the party trailing the right-wing Reform UK in the polls for 18 months. “Burnham has relatively little fiscal room for manoeuvre,” said Anand Menon, director of UK in a Changing Europe. New spending will have to be raised via taxation rather than borrowing, though there may be scope for “hypothecated spending” tied to a clear purpose, such as defence bonds, Menon said. “If you make it absolutely clear what these things are for, the markets will be more permissive. But the fiscal situation is tight,” he noted. Manchester model The government spent around 110 billion British pounds ($148bn) on debt interest in 2025-26 alone, about eight percent of all public spending. Borrowing has run higher than planned this year, and taxes are forecast to reach their highest share of the economy since World War II by the end of the decade.
Gareth Dale, associate head of Social and Political Sciences at Brunel University, points to Burnham’s record in Manchester, including the city’s fare-capped bus network, as proof that “meaningful reforms needn’t always come with a big price tag”. Whether that scales up nationally will hinge on his willingness to confront the bond markets. “What Burnham did in Manchester might be harder to do at a national level,” warned Menon. “He’s got to get the balance right between showing he’s aware of the fact that there’s a country outside of London and that isn’t just Manchester.” Menon doubts fiscal manoeuvring alone will shift the public mood. He says that living standards have stagnated and services have eroded since 2008 so “people don’t just want to listen to what you’re saying, they want to see changes for the better in their lives”. Burnham’s in-tray is complicated further by a diplomatic dispute that flared days before he is slated to take office. The government fully nationalised British Steel’s Scunthorpe works, a year after taking control of the loss-making plant when Chinese owner Jingye Group said it planned to close it. Jingye has vowed to pursue “full compensation through legal means,” while China’s Ministry of Commerce accused London of undermining Chinese investor confidence. It leaves Burnham managing a strained relationship with China from day one, after Starmer went to great efforts to reset relations between the two countries. Beyond borders Menon argues that much of what shapes a prime minister’s fortunes lies outside their control and outside Britain’s borders. “Sometimes the drivers of political success and failure are utterly out of your hands,” he said. He cited the war in Ukraine, Brexit and the COVID-19 pandemic as reminders that a “medium-sized open economy” is exposed to forces it cannot direct. That extends to Washington, where personal chemistry with US President Donald Trump will matter “at least for a while, until he goes off people”, Menon said.
The BriefWire