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Andy Burnham promised to bring hope to the British people and purpose to the country\u2019s floundering Labour government as he was officially declared party leader on Friday, clearing his final hurdle to take office as prime minister next week.<\/p>\n
The former mayor of Greater Manchester was the only contender in the centre-left party\u2019s leadership contest to replace departing Prime Minister Keir Starmer, who was forced out by a Labour rebellion. Friday\u2019s announcement was a foregone conclusion after Burnham secured nominations from 379 of the 403 Labour lawmakers in the House of Commons.<\/p>\n
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Andy Burnham has been confirmed as the UK Labour Party\u2019s new leader and will be the next prime minister.Henry Nicholls\/Pool AFP via AP<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re going to give them hope back,\u201d Burnham told an audience of lawmakers, party activists and trade union leaders in his first speech as leader. \u201cThis is a proud moment you have given me and my family today, and an emotional one, but it is one for which I am ready.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI have a plan,\u201d he added, in a bit to reassure a party that has seen its popularity nosedive since winning a landslide election victory two years ago.<\/p>\n
Australian expat Catherine West, a Labour MP since 2015 who was among the 379 to vote for Burnham, received one nomination from Bermondsey and Old Southwark MP Neil Coyle.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m flattered … but I\u2019m backing Andy,\u201d West said in a post on X. In May, West vowed to launch a formal challenge against Starmer<\/a>, in a bid to force cabinet ministers to choose a new leader.<\/p>\n Burnham, as he took to the stage, said: \u201cI don\u2019t need to say commiserations to Catherine West because she backed me too. Thanks, Catherine.\u201d<\/p>\n Burnham has been prime minister-in-waiting for weeks, since winning a special election for a seat in Parliament a month ago<\/a>, but he has revealed little detail about his policy priorities. He will arrive in Number 10 Downing Street largely unknown to voters outside Manchester.<\/p>\n He sketched out some priorities in Friday\u2019s speech, promising to deliver \u201chope in every heart\u201d and \u201cgood growth in very post code,\u201d in part by transferring power from central government in London to local leaders in cities and regions.<\/p>\n \u201cWe will take power back from Westminster and Whitehall and give it to the place you live,\u201d he told the audience. \u201cMore power over life\u2019s essentials so you can make them work better.\u201d<\/p>\n Related Article Starmer announced last month that he would resign<\/a> after two years in office marred by missteps and judgment errors that eroded his standing with his party and the public.<\/p>\n Labour regularly trails behind anti-immigration party Reform UK in opinion polls, and the governing party had catastrophic results in local elections in May, triggering pressure on Starmer to step down<\/a> that he couldn\u2019t resist.<\/p>\n Burnham brings a more relaxed style of leadership than Starmer<\/a>, and is regarded as one of the Labour Party\u2019s best communicators. But he faces many of the same problems as his predecessor, including a sluggish economy, a cost-of-living squeeze fuelled by wars in Ukraine and the Middle East and overstretched public services.<\/p>\n And his promises of a new, less divisive politics are not too different to what Starmer pledged when he took office in 2024.<\/p>\n \u201cI will work to build a new politics. The country is crying out for it,\u201d Burnham said. \u201cHow can politicians point fingers when living standards are falling and politics as a whole isn\u2019t working for them? It infuriates them and makes them switch off.\u201d<\/p>\n He said he would have the \u201ccourage to fix the big things that politics has neglected,\u201d such as tackling the patchy access to social care for those who need it because of age, illness or disability. It\u2019s a pressing issue in a country with an ageing population, and one that has foxed previous Labour and Conservative governments.<\/p>\n He highlighted plans to focus on economic renewal, more public control of key sectors and creating new modern industrial jobs, arguing that Britain took \u201ca series of wrong turns in the 1980s\u201d when \u201cpolitical power was centralised and economic power privatised.\u201d<\/p>\n![\"Reform](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/f46e3473894bb1d3ea76ff8d32b2ecf15805ca6d.jpeg\")
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