{"id":86830,"date":"2026-07-20T21:12:11","date_gmt":"2026-07-20T21:12:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/86830\/"},"modified":"2026-07-20T21:12:11","modified_gmt":"2026-07-20T21:12:11","slug":"andy-burnham-the-king-of-the-north-is-britains-new-pm","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/86830\/","title":{"rendered":"Andy Burnham, \u201cthe King of the North,\u201d is Britain\u2019s new PM"},"content":{"rendered":"

This story appeared in Today, Explained, a daily newsletter that helps you understand the most compelling news and stories of the day. Subscribe here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The first thing you need to know about the UK\u2019s new prime minister is that he\u2019s previously moonlighted as a DJ.<\/p>\n

Okay: probably not the first thing you needed to know. And sure: That DJ gig<\/a> was for charity.<\/p>\n

But it still tells you a little something about Andy Burnham, who today became the UK\u2019s seventh prime minister in 10 years. He\u2019s widely seen as a pragmatic<\/a>, affable<\/a>, down-to-earth<\/a> kind of guy \u2014 more Zohran Mamdani than Keir Starmer.<\/p>\n

As the long-time former mayor of Manchester, the UK\u2019s second-largest city, Burnham won adoration for his focus on improving public transit and affordable housing. His vocal advocacy for England\u2019s post-industrial cities even earned him the nickname \u201cThe King of the North.\u201d<\/p>\n

Burnham\u2019s first speech<\/a> as prime minister, delivered (without notes!) on Monday morning, doubled down on some of those populist themes \u2014 including the need to bring down Britain\u2019s cost of living and address homelessness.<\/p>\n

Political observers don\u2019t expect Burnham\u2019s policies to actually differ all that much from those of Starmer, his predecessor. (They\u2019re both members of Britain\u2019s center-left Labour Party.) And the fundamental relationship between the UK and US is also expected to stay much the same<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Asked how he\u2019d relate to President Donald Trump, Burnham said: \u201cI like to think I\u2019ve got some personality myself.\u201d You can be the judge of that! There\u2019s video<\/a> of his 2022 DJ set.<\/p>\n

Will Britain\u2019s new PM reverse Brexit?<\/p>\n

Call it a breturn or a brejoinder \u2014 it\u2019s a tantalizing prospect for the majority<\/a> of Britons, who now either have soured on their country\u2019s 2016 vote to depart from the EU or never supported Brexit to begin with.<\/p>\n

But undoing Britain\u2019s break with Europe would be a monumental undertaking. First, the government would likely need a clear political mandate from British voters, either through a second referendum or a general election where a breturn figured heavily.<\/p>\n

Then the UK would have to negotiate its way back into the bloc\u2026and convince all 27 member states to give it another go. Some could approve accession with parliamentary votes. But others, including France, could require national referendums of their own.<\/p>\n

\u201cCountries have very different views of Britain,\u201d one European observer told Vox<\/a> last month. \u201cThere are those that still think that the EU is better off without Britain.\u201d<\/p>\n

Did you know\u2026that despite all the evidence to the contrary \u2014 license plates, hip-hop lyrics, etc. \u2014 a minority of American peaches<\/a> are actually grown in the great state of Georgia? Today\u2019s trivia: Nahuatl is still spoken by millions of people today. But it was also the primary language of which former Mesoamerican civilization? (You can find this and other brain puzzles in Vox\u2019s daily crossword<\/a>. Look for the answer in tomorrow\u2019s edition.)Friday\u2019s trivia: On Friday, my colleague Dylan Scott asked you for a Russian name that means \u201choly.\u201d That would be Oleg, as in Oleg Cassini<\/a> \u2014 the Russian count turned designer who dressed Jackie Kennedy. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This story appeared in Today, Explained, a daily newsletter that helps you understand the most compelling news and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":86831,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[2],"tags":[13,37740,4006],"class_list":["post-86830","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-britain","tag-britain","tag-explained-newsletter","tag-today"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@UnitedKingdom\/116954368793386005","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86830","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=86830"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86830\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/86831"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=86830"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=86830"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=86830"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}