PTI
London
Andy Burnham was on Friday confirmed as the newly elected leader of the UK’s governing Labour Party, becoming the prime minister-designate to take charge at 10 Downing Street next week.
The 56-year-old member of Parliament for Makerfield in northern England, on track to become Britain’s seventh prime minister in a decade, admitted that it was the “last chance” for Labour to deliver the change promised at the last general election in July 2024.
“We are going to give people hope back,” said Burnham in his first speech as party leader.
“I am ready to lead, building on the foundations laid by Keir Starmer,” he said, thanking the outgoing leader for his “service to the country”.
Burnham, the sole candidate in the leadership race since Starmer announced his resignation last month, vowed to “set Britain on a new path” with a less toxic political climate and a greater shift away from centralised power at Westminster in London.
“I will be a leader for every region and nation in this great country, and this party will be unashamedly Labour in our priorities and in the decisions we take,” he said.
“We want to give your area more power to build the council and social homes that you desperately need, more power to improve your high street, backing local businesses such as the pubs and the shops that bring them to life… More power to re-industrialise,” said in the PM-in-waiting.
In an attempt to highlight a shift in leadership priorities, the former mayor of Greater Manchester took aim at the Opposition Tories’ “sweeping privatisation agenda” which began under former prime minister Margaret Thatcher as he indicated plans for greater nationalisation.
“Britain took a series of wrong turns in the 1980s. Political power was centralised and economic power was privatised. The country surrendered control of the essentials, housing, water, energy, transport and left people exposed to higher costs.
“The Right (Tories) use the phrase ‘take back control’ but they are the ones who gave it away in the first place,” he noted.
Insisting that an economy that works for all people and places lies at the “very core of Labourism” and requires a “new path to the one we’ve been on for the last 40 years”.
“The government I lead will confidently lay that path out, starting next week, and that is why this change today is the most significant change moment in our politics for 40 years. It will take us to a country where life is more affordable, and all people and places are lifted from where they are now,” he stated.
While stressing that he had not finalised his decisions on what his Cabinet will look like, Burnham pledged that his top team would draw MPs from all sections of the Labour Party to bring unity.
Promising to govern on behalf of “forgotten places everywhere”, he declared: “From here we do it differently. We win by being us, boldly, confidently, authentically us. Labour. That’s how we win.”
Earlier, Labour’s National Executive Committee (NEC) chair Shabana Mahmood announced the results of the leadership election at a special party conference in London.
“There was only one nominated MP hardly a nail biter,” said Mahmood, expected to either hold on to her role as home secretary or be elevated to the post of Chancellor under a Burnham premiership.
On Monday, Burnham will be invited by King Charles III to form a new government after outgoing PM Keir Starmer formally tenders his resignation to the British monarch.
