Andy Burnham’s Speech to the Labour Party Conference Could Be the Start of a Positive Social-Democratic Politics

When Andy Burnham became Labour leader in July, his opening pitch to party members was an attack on the legacy of Margaret Thatcher. In a country where even Labour prime ministers like Tony Blair stressed political continuity of his governance with the Iron Lady’s revolution against postwar social democracy, Burnham’s assault on Thatcherite ideological straitjacketing was unprecedented. The “four decades of neoliberalism” she initiated, Burnham said, “hadn’t been kind” to working-class people; at the door of 10 Downing Street days later, he reiterated that the country was in dire need of a “circuit breaker” from decades heading in the “wrong direction.”

Last week, as thousands of people thronged Labour Party conference, this message landed in a peculiar setting. On the face of it, little had changed from last year, with scores of suited lobbyists and PR figures wading past stalls where trade unions and multinational corporations made for awkward temporary neighbors.

Dissent was not difficult to find. Sunday saw over 50 people arrested for protesting the direct-action network Palestine Action’s inclusion on the terrorism register, with a 94-year-old retired human rights lawyer the oldest arrested “terrorist.” On Monday, artificial intelligence workers launching a report into their “degrading” and “intense” work were empty-chaired by invited AI Minister Kanishka Naraya. On Tuesday, migrant care workers protested plans to scrap their permanent residence status—a decision announced at last year’s conference by Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood.

Ending the Drift

Yet little of this daily experience of the Labour Party was to be found in Burnham’s keynote speech. Under the banner of “Hope Again” and promising the “unlocking of working-class inspiration,” he attacked the way in which the impersonal forces of the free market had eroded the security and dignity recently enjoyed by British workers. Listing deindustrialization, deregulation, privatization, austerity, and Britain’s vote to leave the European Union as leading the country down a “40-year drift,” Burnham articulated some bold solutions. Addressing the plight of nurses and care workers, who he called “let down” and “at risk of burn-out” due to the lack of political attention paid to them, he proposed a “person-centered” National Care Service, modeled on the universal principles of the NHS, where “everyone contributes and is covered.”

For newly built social homes, Burnham said that they will not be covered by Right to Buy—an effective end to a scheme that allowed tenants to buy their homes for cheap from local authorities and ensured Britain’s status as having the second-worst housing crisis in Europe. Since England and Wales are the only countries in the world with a completely privatized water and sewage infrastructure, Burnham promised a new parliamentary bill to “repeal Margaret Thatcher’s ideological ban on the public ownership of water companies.”

Action was promised against slum landlords, as were pledges of reindustrialization, lowering living costs, new workers’ rights, ending the triple-lock pension, and offering the possibility of electoral reform. To achieve this “rewiring” of Britain, Burnham told members, “I am ready to do things my predecessors wouldn’t.… I need to break the mold.”

Burnham’s speech was a marked contrast to the cold platitudes and jingoism that defined the interventions of Keir Starmer, whose removal as Labour leader was assured by his stewardship of this year’s local elections that saw a complete collapse in Labour’s vote and a fragmentation of its coalition that looked terminal.

Seeing the Details

From the left and trade unions, the switch from Starmer to Burnham was like the difference between night and day. For Dave Ward, the leader of the Communication Workers Union, it was “the most profound speech from a Labour prime minister in my lifetime.” Ward, a left-winger whose union has been influential in encouraging Burnham and his agenda, told The Nation that despite some skepticism with Burnham’s ideas—such as ending the triple-lock on pensions—he praised “the courage to discuss these questions—social care, reindustrialization, the world of work and taking back control…these are questions any serious politicians have to confront. We now just need to see the detail.”

For Aydin Dikerdem, a Labour councillor whose work in the left-leaning London local authority of Wandsworth saw record numbers of municipal housing initiatives before a split Labour-Green vote gave the council to the Tories, Burnham’s intervention was “hugely cathartic.” Labour’s true believers, Dikerdem said, “have been brutalized by Starmerism and its miserable, rightwards-facing agenda.” For another councilor, the agenda is “an opportunity to breathe again.”

Neither are alone in thinking this: A recent poll suggests that 92 percent of Labour members think that Burnham is doing a good job, and he remains the most popular political leader in wider opinion polls. In Parliament, some MPs privately express concerns about the possibility of his agenda’s being realized. “I’m absolutely with [the agenda],” one Labour MP said, “but could I hand-on-heart say that about all my colleagues?” Of the 2024 parliamentary intake, Le Monde diplomatique estimates that one in three have an employment history in corporate lobbying. Their candidacies were allegedly collectively greenlighted by disgraced New Labour grandee Peter Mandelson. Just last year they were happy to endorse the most austerian, authoritarian aspects of Starmerism, from inactivity over Gaza abroad to the imposition of welfare cuts at home.

This isn’t tremendously positive material to construct a progressive project. For Burnham to succeed, a corporate disciplining over the gluttony of private interest is a necessity. But for many first-time MPs in marginal seats, with little commitment to Labour and increasingly anxious about their employment situation if they lose their constituencies in 2029, won’t this sort of politics make for difficult discussion when navigating possible post-Parliament work? Outside a political rally, one Young Labour delegate paraphrased cultural theorist Stuart Hall in saying that right-wing Labour’s “instinct for short-term political survival” will compel them to tag along with Burnham’s agenda. “It’s popular, it’s what will keep them in their seats, so it’s what they’ll go along with.”

Others are more skeptical and emphasize the need for left-wingers to begin organizing to regain positions, hold firmly and loudly to Burnham’s progressive policies, and develop a democratic internal culture that was nearly suffocated by Starmer. For a councillor in a southern Tory marginal seat who supports Mainstream, a “soft left” faction of Labour seen as being close to Burnham, “it’s great that sadists aren’t running the show anymore.” But, highlighting that the question of water ownership is being excluded from discussion by conference organizers, the councilor warned, “Unless you get these changes properly enshrined and a culture properly owned by members, we’re hostages to fortune.”

This is a common concern: the idea that the winds might change, and the same clique that brought the party to near-oblivion under Starmer may still be steering the ship. The Nation understands that in the conference buildup, Starmer-loyal party employees unsuccessfully tried to keep all union motions off the agenda. Dealing with these “blatantly sectarian” officials was “nearly impossible,” the union official said. “It’s like Operation Gladio for people who think anyone left of Blair is a communist.”

Many of these worries may be assuaged or confirmed by the Autumn Budget, to be released on Wednesday, October 28. Little has been confirmed regarding its contents, although the mood music suggests a certain gloominess. Not everything is possible in a single budget, but huge hope is being placed that it could be a convincing start of a positive, social-democratic process that will row back the far right’s appeal and renew a British left that has been on the defensive for too long.

“Andy needs to show the cynics it’s not just rhetoric,” Dikerdem asserted. “He has to wield power while he has it—no regrets, no caution. Take back water, make rent cheaper, build council homes, get the energy systems clean and controlled, take on the superrich and the racists. The country will be better for it, and so will Labour.” For now, the reception of Burnham and his agenda is proof that Britain is ready for a renewal on progressive terms. But as Dave Ward said, we do need those details.