UK Labour party to crown 'King of the North' Burnham as leader and next PM
With centre-left Labour holding an overwhelming majority in parliament, the 56-year-old is set to replace Starmer in 10 Downing Street on Monday – just four weeks after he sensationally returned as an MP following a nine-year absence.
Burnham – nicknamed "King of the North" for winning three successive elections to the Greater Manchester mayoralty – faced no challengers for the Labour leadership.
He becomes the party's leader at the third attempt following failed bids in 2010 and 2015.
An MP between 2001 and 2017 and former government minister, Burnham has since reinvented himself as a man of the people, blending a relaxed folksy class with slick social media videos.
Hailing from the party's so-called soft left, he has secured the backing of 379 of Labour's 403 MPs, with no one mustering the 81 nominations required to challenge him.
He will take office on Monday after meeting head of state King Charles III, who will ask him to form the next government.
Andy Burnham, 'King of the North' and frontrunner to replace Starmer as PM
Giving people hope
Labour MPs hope he can communicate with the public better than Starmer and that he is willing to take a more radical approach to reforming Britain's battered public services and firing up the economy.
Starmer has said he is "deeply grateful" for the across-the-party support and trust of Labour MPs.
"That is the circuit breaker I am offering: power out of Westminster, an economy rewired for ordinary people, and good growth in every postcode."
His flagship idea is to devolve powers to other cities and create a "No. 10 North" based in Manchester to ensure regions outside the British capital are not neglected.
Labour is betting that he is the party's best chance of reining in Nigel Farage's anti-immigrant Reform UK party, tipped in the polls to win the next general election, expected in 2029.
"We've got to give people a lift, haven't we? We've got to give people a stronger sense of hope and a feeling that the country's on the way back," Burnham said on a podcast with ex-footballer Gary Lineker on Wednesday.
Starmer bids UK MPs 'goodbye', vows to support Burnham
Challenges ahead
Starmer returned Labour to power after 14 years in opposition in July 2024 with a landslide victory over the Conservatives.
But his premiership quickly became characterised by domestic policy missteps and controversies, including his appointment of ex-Jeffrey Epstein associate Peter Mandelson as ambassador to Washington.
Disastrous local and regional election results in May heaped further pressure on Starmer, which became impossible to withstand after Burnham won a parliamentary by-election on 18 June, allowing him to run for leader.
Most Labour MPs then withdrew their support for Starmer and on 22 June he announced that he was resigning.
French President Emmanuel Macron awarded Starmer with the Legion d'honneur – France's highest honour – on Monday in Paris, where he was attending a summit of Ukraine's allies. Macron's office said it was in recognition of his work on the security of Europe and Ukraine.
Burnham has vowed to stick to Labour's 2024 election manifesto by not raising the country's main taxes.
But he needs to find money elsewhere to fill a £4.7 billion gap over four years in the defence investment plan.
He also faces the same challenges that beset Starmer: a tepid economy, high government borrowing costs, and irregular migrants arriving in small boats that have fuelled support for Reform.
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(with newswires)