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Andy Burnham has repeated his claim that Britain is too “in hock to the bond markets” and set out his case for “business friendly socialism” in his latest intervention in British politics.
In a speech to the Institute for Fiscal Studies on Tuesday morning, the Greater Manchester mayor said Britain was “in a low growth doom loop” and “our shallow, adversarial political system has shown itself incapable of lifting us out of it and it only adds to the volatility, so we do find ourselves stuck in a rut and in hock to the bond markets”.
Burnham faced a wave of criticism from anonymous government insiders when he first said Labour was “in hock to the bond markets” in an interview with the New Statesman in September.
There were claims that a Burnham leadership would trigger a debt crisis. Rachel Reeves said “we rely on those bond markets” in an interview following the mayor’s remarks. Keir Starmer seemed to compare his long-time rival to Liz Truss.
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Today’s word for word restatement of that claim was a clear two fingers to his critics inside government. Instead he set out his alternative approach to the economy, termed “Manchesterism”.
The speech began with remarks about Burnham’s plans for five sector clusters in Greater Manchester before ranging much more widely.
He expanded on his theory of “Manchesterism”, an approach to politics first set out in that NS interview ahead of Labour Party conference. “The main foundation of the success of Manchesterism, as it has been called, is a different political culture, a polar opposite of the Whitehall and Westminster way,” he said.
Burnham said he “seeks to roll back the 1980s and take more public control”. “It is business friendly socialism,” he said, “we have built a new politics and are now building a new economy as a result of that”
He proceeded to attack Nigel Farage and Robert Jenrick without naming them, characterising the Reform duo as “the new British right” and rejecting their claim that Britain is broken.
“In recent days we’ve heard the claim from the new British right that Britain is broken. Well, I can tell them in no uncertain terms that Greater Manchester isn’t broken. But if they believe what they are saying, can I ask them what and who they think broke it? I know what I think. It was the four horsemen of Britain’s apocalypse: deregulation, privatisation, austerity and Brexit.”
He then blamed “the arch-Thatcherites” of Reform for supporting a decades-long effort to privatise large parts of the economy while centralising political control in the Treasury. Burnham appeared to call for Labour to take a stronger line against Reform, saying it should “confidently” argue against the party and suggesting his brand of politics would be a good starting point.
He said: “This is a decisive moment in our politics when the British left should go out confidently and win the argument as to who broke Britain and what will fix it. The lesson from Manchester is that to do it we must build a new politics, more collaborative, so that we can take the long-term, prudent approach to repairing the economy. Manchesterism is a modern and functional response to the high inequality, low growth trap that came from the 1980s drive to overcentralise political power in the Treasury and privatise economic power.”
It was another clear challenge to the current Labour leadership. But despite the withering criticism of Westminster he did say the government “deserves great credit” for announcing an overnight visitor levy, or “tourist tax”, in the city regions and for giving the regions more design and funding of infrastructure projects like Northern Powerhouse Rail.
The Burnham position on questions of leadership remains the same as it has since that dramatic party conference intervention: he is not actively plotting any leadership challenge, but he cannot predict the future and will not rule anything out.
[Further reading: Labour MPs relieved at Hillsborough Law delay]
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