Keir Starmer’s likely successor offers a fresh coat of paint over the same unpopular policies
British Labour MP Andy Burnham looks set to be airdropped into Downing Street to replace Prime Minister Keir Starmer. He’s promising “renewal for our party and our country,” after the sitting prime minister effectively burned the greatest parliamentary majority in over a hundred years with scandals, a lack of empathy, and a notoriously belligerent line on the country’s relationship with Israel.
However, despite the premature hailing of Burnham as someone who could reinvigorate the Labour vote, all signs point to him delivering Starmerism without Starmer.
Starmer resigned on Monday as the most unpopular prime minister in modern British history, six weeks after the Labour Party lost almost 1,500 seats in local elections across England. His resignation opened a leadership contest that Burnham – a Labour veteran that served under Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, who re-entered parliament after winning a by-election in Makerfield, Macnhester last week – is all but guaranteed to win.
An endorsement by fellow Labour contender Wes Streeting followed, essentially sealing the deal. Burnham will likely be anointed prime minister later this summer on the back of fewer than 25,000 votes in Makerfield.
“The country expects stability, seriousness and a continued focus on the issues that matter most and that is what it will get,” Burnham wrote on social media. “The Labour movement has always been at its strongest when it looks forward with confidence…and we will make sure this transition is a positive process of renewal for our party and our country.”
The Andy Burnham aesthetic
At first glance, Burnham represents an aesthetic break from Starmer, who has been described as “wooden” and “lacking in charisma.” Speaking in a slightly working class northern accent and clad in a simple shirt and jeans, Burnham goes to great lengths to set himself apart from the “Westminster bubble” inhabited by suit-and-tie southerners like Starmer.
The North vs South-off in the battle to be British Prime Minister - which pitch will win out? pic.twitter.com/r0CKtH6Z5s
admin
