British Labour’s decision to follow the path blazed by Australian politicians to a revolving door of prime ministers is further proof of traditional politics trying to reconnect with a disgruntled electorate and cauterise the stampede to rabid populists.
Andy Burnham is poised to replace Keir Starmer and become the seventh prime minister of the United Kingdom in 10 years.
Some thought Starmer was too dour. His heir apparent quickly put any such perception of himself to bed during his swearing in on Monday as the new MP for Makerfield in the House of Commons when he stepped back onto the national stage and turned to Monty Python to parry a jibe.
“You’re not the Messiah,” a Tory MP cried. “Just a naughty boy,” Burnham replied.
It is highly unusual to make jokes during such formal rituals, but Burnham possesses the kind of common touch that perhaps suggests a better understanding of the grievance politics that have torn his country.
An MP for more than a decade and a half, who rose through the ranks under prime minister Tony Blair and served in prime minister Gordon Brown’s cabinet between 2007 and 2010, Burnham was mayor of Greater Manchester until he won the recent byelection. He has an astute feel for the electorate’s disenchantment over immigration and perceptions that London had too much power. He also carries the torch that the UK was better off before privatisation.
After the shenanigan years of Tory government, Starmer came to power with great expectations in 2024, but the honeymoon was quickly over: he cut winter fuel payments for all but the poorest pensioners and attempted to slash the spiralling welfare bill. He backed down but compounded the fracture in confidence by appointing Peter Mandelson, the subsequently exposed great friend of Jeffrey Epstein, as ambassador to Washington. Meanwhile, his government drifted. Labour colleagues sniped.
Yet Starmer’s achievements were considerable. He won a landslide majority, pumped money into the National Health Service, committed to Ukraine and tidied up some electorally poisonous Labour internal politics. His signature look was honesty and integrity but Mandelson’s appointment left him looking pretty shabby. The rise of Reform UK, the business owned by its leader Nigel Farage, in local government elections last month doomed his prime ministership.
Burnham’s Makerfield victory confounded many. The byelection was expected to be won by Reform, but Burnham won nearly 55 per cent of the vote, more than all other candidates, and stopped Farage dead. But for how long?
Burnham will inherit Starmer’s challenges, but he must prove a better salesman because, just as polls suggest Pauline Hanson’s One Nation is cannibalising votes from traditional parties, Reform UK is causing existential problems for the UK Conservative Party and alarming Labour.
Britain’s leaders would do well to heed the lessons from Australia in recent years, when both the ALP and the Coalition cycled through prime ministers at an alarming rate.
While changing leaders may give a party a short-term sugar hit, ultimately, unless a party fundamentally changes its policies and messaging, the electorate will not reward such machinations.
Both Australia and the UK are facing an angry populace demanding urgent transformation by traditional parties. Changing the leader won’t come close to calming angry electorates who are heeding the populist call of opportunist outsiders.
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