Andy\u00a0Burnham, who took office Monday as the United Kingdom\u2019s prime minister, is bringing a notable Austin connection to 10 Downing Street.\u00a0<\/p>\n
A little more than a year ago, Burnham, who served for nine years as mayor of Greater Manchester, a large metropolitan area in northwest England that includes the city of Manchester, signed an agreement making Manchester a \u201cFriendship City\u201d with Austin \u2014 a designation intended to strengthen ties between the two regions. Burnham was elected to a third term as mayor in 2024, and represented about 3 million people.\u00a0<\/p>\n
During a ceremony at Austin City Hall in June 2025, Burnham and Austin Mayor Kirk Watson exchanged Austin FC and Manchester United jerseys and discussed renewed partnerships between the University of Manchester and the University of Texas. Burnham also joined local Austin musicians in song.\u00a0<\/p>\n
On June 4, during an official visit to Manchester, Watson signed an agreement with Greater Manchester\u2019s deputy mayor, Kate Green, to upgrade the partnership to a formal \u201csister city\u201d relationship, the closest partnership Austin can form with another government. Greater Manchester is Austin\u2019s 14th sister city.<\/p>\n
\u201cToday\u2019s signing unlocks opportunities for Austin and Greater Manchester in economic development, innovation, science and technology, education, tourism, arts and music, and urban development,\u201d Watson said of the \u201csister city\u201d partnership, according to the Greater Manchester Combined Authority.<\/p>\n
\u201cConnecting with international partners brings massive wins straight back home to Austinites. The high-wage jobs we\u2019re creating don\u2019t just boost our quality of life \u2013 they attract funding for medical breakthroughs and green tech, bring microchip manufacturing back to the US, and pay for the parks, roads, and city services we use every day,\u201d he said. \u201cPlus, this global attention keeps our iconic live music and arts culture thriving. As we mature into our role on the world stage, we\u2019re focused on growing these benefits for our entire community.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Burnham was absent from the ceremony in Manchester last month because he was campaigning for a seat in Parliament. The campaign marked a return to national politics for Burnham, who had previously held some of the highest positions in British politics, including serving as health secretary in Prime Minister Gordon Brown\u2019s Cabinet and as a member of Parliament representing Leigh, a town in Greater Manchester. A member of the center-left Labour Party, Burnham left national politics in 2017 to return home to northwest England as mayor.<\/p>\n
Last month, Burnham won a parliamentary election to represent Makerfield, another constituency in Greater Manchester. He defeated Reform UK candidate Robert Kenyon in the British equivalent of a special election. The constituency has been represented only by Labour members of Parliament.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The race drew international attention because Burnham confirmed before winning the seat that he intended to challenge Prime Minister Keir Starmer for the leadership of the Labour Party. Dubbed the \u201cKing of the North\u201d by his supporters, Burnham was widely viewed as a favorite to succeed Starmer. He won the seat Friday after running unopposed.<\/p>\n
On Monday, King Charles III formally asked Burnham to form a government, becoming the United Kingdom\u2019s seventh prime minister in a decade.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Burnham now takes office at a particularly fraught time for Britain’s governing Labour Party, just 13 months after helping launch Austin\u2019s partnership with Greater Manchester.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Andy\u00a0Burnham, who took office Monday as the United Kingdom\u2019s prime minister, is bringing a notable Austin connection to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":380791,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[132,134,133],"class_list":["post-380790","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-austin","tag-austin","tag-austin-headlines","tag-austin-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/380790","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=380790"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/380790\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/380791"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=380790"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=380790"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=380790"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}