{"id":86182,"date":"2026-07-19T20:38:12","date_gmt":"2026-07-19T20:38:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/86182\/"},"modified":"2026-07-19T20:38:12","modified_gmt":"2026-07-19T20:38:12","slug":"andy-burnhams-in-tray-the-challenges-facing-the-new-uk-pm-politics-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/86182\/","title":{"rendered":"Andy Burnham\u2019s in-tray: The challenges facing the new UK PM | Politics News"},"content":{"rendered":"

Andy Burnham<\/a>, who becomes the United Kingdom\u2019s next prime minister on Monday, faces a roster of challenges as the country\u2019s seventh leader in a decade.<\/p>\n

Burnham was overwhelmingly backed as Labour leader on Friday after current Prime Minister Keir Starmer resigned last month.<\/p>\n

It has been a whirlwind month for the former Greater Manchester mayor, with his vision for the country and his cabinet still unclear.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis has gone faster than he thought. It\u2019s only been four weeks since he won the by-election. I don\u2019t think he knows all of the answers yet; he hasn\u2019t had the thinking time,\u201d Sunder Katwala, director of the British Future think tank, told Al Jazeera.<\/p>\n

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\u2019s popularity, with the party trailing the right-wing Reform UK in the polls for 18 months.<\/p>\n

\u201cBurnham has relatively little fiscal room for manoeuvre,\u201d said Anand Menon, director of UK in a Changing Europe.<\/p>\n

New spending will have to be raised via taxation rather than borrowing, though there may be scope for \u201chypothecated spending\u201d tied to a clear purpose, such as defence bonds, Menon said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you make it absolutely clear what these things are for, the markets will be more permissive. But the fiscal situation is tight,\u201d he noted.<\/p>\n

\"SoccerAndy Burnham, mayor of Greater Manchester, in the stands during a football match [David Klein\/Reuters]Manchester model<\/p>\n

The government spent around 110 billion British pounds ($148bn) on debt interest<\/a> in 2025-26 alone, about eight percent of all public spending. Borrowing has run higher<\/a> 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.<\/p>\n

Gareth Dale, associate head of Social and Political Sciences at Brunel University, points to Burnham\u2019s record in Manchester, including the city\u2019s fare-capped bus network, as proof that \u201cmeaningful reforms needn\u2019t always come with a big price tag\u201d.<\/p>\n

Whether that scales up nationally will hinge on his willingness to confront the bond markets.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat Burnham did in Manchester might be harder to do at a national level,\u201d warned Menon. \u201cHe\u2019s got to get the balance right between showing he\u2019s aware of the fact that there\u2019s a country outside of London and that isn\u2019t just Manchester.\u201d<\/p>\n

Menon doubts fiscal manoeuvring alone will shift the public mood. He says that living standards have stagnated and services have eroded since 2008 so \u201cpeople don\u2019t just want to listen to what you\u2019re saying, they want to see changes for the better in their lives\u201d.<\/p>\n

Burnham\u2019s in-tray is complicated further by a diplomatic dispute that flared days before he is slated to take office. The government fully nationalised<\/a> British Steel\u2019s Scunthorpe works, a year after taking control of the loss-making plant when Chinese owner Jingye Group said it planned to close it.<\/p>\n

Jingye has vowed to pursue \u201cfull compensation through legal means,\u201d while China\u2019s Ministry of Commerce accused London of undermining Chinese investor confidence.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

\"SCUNTHORPE,The United Kingdom\u2019s government announced this morning that it was taking British Steel into public ownership in a bid to \u2018protect UK steelmaking\u2019 [Christopher Furlong\/Getty Images]Beyond borders<\/p>\n

Menon argues that much of what shapes a prime minister\u2019s fortunes lies outside their control and outside Britain\u2019s borders.<\/p>\n

\u201cSometimes the drivers of political success and failure are utterly out of your hands,\u201d he said. He cited the war in Ukraine, Brexit and the COVID-19 pandemic as reminders that a \u201cmedium-sized open economy\u201d is exposed to forces it cannot direct.<\/p>\n

That extends to Washington, where personal chemistry with US President Donald Trump will matter \u201cat least for a while, until he goes off people\u201d, Menon said.<\/p>\n

Dependence on the US for defence and technology rules out any dramatic reconfiguring of British-US ties.<\/p>\n

Menon expects European Union relations to get less attention than under Starmer, predicting Burnham to be \u201cmore avowedly domestic\u201d focused.<\/p>\n

This could still be tested by Gaza, where Burnham has apologised for the previous government\u2019s stance. Menon cautions that turning words into policy \u201cdepends heavily on events\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s given some hints he\u2019ll be less knee-jerkly supportive of Israel than Starmer was, but whether that carries over into power, we\u2019ll have to wait and see,\u201d explained Menon.<\/p>\n

He also doubts whether Burnham would risk a rupture with Washington regarding US bases in Britain, which could be used, indirectly, in US-Israel war on Iran.<\/p>\n

\"epa13117115Andy Burnham, right, shakes hands with Neil Kinnock, former Labour Party leader in the 1980s and 1990s, as he arrives before being confirmed as the Labour Party\u2019s new leader and the country\u2019s next prime minister during \u2018Labour\u2019s Special Conference\u2019 in London, England, the United Kingdom, July 17, 2026 [Henry NIicholls\/Pool\/EPA]Defence first<\/p>\n

Reports suggest that Burnham is likely to put defence above welfare spending, which will again rankle some in his party.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019ll probably prioritise arms spending over welfare\u2026 while dialling down the \u2018net zero\u2019 programme,\u201d warns Dale, with Burnham expected to allow for new North Sea oil and gas drilling.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd he voted<\/a> to make the asylum system more brutal. If he does set policy in these directions, it\u2019ll put wind in the sails of the far right, and probably accelerate the shift of voters from Labour to Green,\u201d Dale said.<\/p>\n

Burnham has moved from Labour\u2019s Blairite wing to its soft left, but \u201ccommands widespread support among Labour MPs\u201d and \u201cgets on with various factions\u201d, he noted.<\/p>\n

But that unity masks deeper erosion: Labour\u2019s vote fell from 12.9 million in 2017 to 9.7 million under Starmer.<\/p>\n

The centre-left party\u2019s support base is also \u201cnarrowing towards wealthier, less diverse parts of the electorate, with the Greens now drawing disillusioned voters on the left\u201d, said Dale.<\/p>\n

Political divides<\/p>\n

That erosion is bound up with a wider polarisation in the country that Katwala says no government can avoid.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think it\u2019s enough to say we\u2019d like to talk about jobs and devolving power and therefore we won\u2019t talk about identity, immigration, race,\u201d says Katwala.<\/p>\n

\"AA woman holds a placard outside Downing Street during a \u2018National March for Palestine\u2019 calling on Britain\u2019s next prime minister, Andy Burnham, to stand up for the Palestinian people, in London, Britain, July 18, 2026 [Jack Taylor\/Reuters]<\/p>\n

He argues that fairness should be framed as universal rather than a concession to certain groups of society.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhether it\u2019s tackling anti-Semitism, Islamophobia or racism generally, these are issues for everybody in society. It\u2019s not for the minority group itself to work out how to challenge the prejudice it faces,\u201d Katwala said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe people who are hostile to Muslims are the people who know the least Muslims and live furthest away. It\u2019s the government\u2019s job to get to that really tough end of attitudes and perceptions that are making people feel less safe.\u201d<\/p>\n

Menon sees a narrow opening on the right-wing narratives popularised by the Reform UK party.<\/p>\n

Labour entered government in 2024 with 33 percent of the vote against Reform\u2019s 14 percent, a gap that has since collapsed following the right-wing party\u2019s links to George Cottrell, a convicted fraudster. <\/a><\/p>\n

Recent polls put Reform around 24-26 percent and Labour close behind it, a marked turnaround from polling earlier this year.<\/p>\n

By-election results also suggest a broad anti-Reform coalition and tactical voting exist, which should strengthen Labour.<\/p>\n

\u201cEven if 30 percent of people are willing to vote Reform, almost 70 percent are willing to do whatever it takes to stop them being elected,\u201d Menon noted.<\/p>\n

Whether that holds, he said, depends on how Burnham performs once the difficulties of government set in.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt becomes a very different game when things are going badly, and if he ends up being a lucky general, then Reform self-destructs,\u201d Menon said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Andy Burnham, who becomes the United Kingdom\u2019s next prime minister on Monday, faces a roster of challenges as…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":86183,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[4],"tags":[157,254,1360,252,18,14,5,6],"class_list":["post-86182","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-uk","tag-brexit","tag-economy","tag-elections","tag-europe","tag-news","tag-politics","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@UnitedKingdom\/116948572729571639","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86182","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=86182"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86182\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/86183"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=86182"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=86182"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=86182"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}