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Why Andy Burnham will have to call an early election · The Front

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  Speaker 1: From the Australian. This is a special bonus episode of
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  Speaker 1: The Front. I'm Claire Harvey. It's Tuesday, June twenty three,
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  Speaker 1: twenty twenty six. Jacqueline Magnet is The Australian's europe correspondent,
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  Speaker 1: and that means she gets the lucky job of explaining
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  Speaker 1: what on earth is happening in British politics. Jack, We've
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  Speaker 1: got two prime ministers, it would seem in Parliament right
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  Speaker 1: now in Britain, one who's on the way out, one
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  Speaker 1: who's on the way in. Kirstarm has resigned. Andy Burnham
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  Speaker 1: has been elected to Parliament, but it's not yet clear
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  Speaker 1: when or if he's actually going to become Prime minister.
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  Speaker 1: What's your money on?
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  Speaker 2: Oh, well, he'll definitely be the prime minister. It's a
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  Speaker 2: matter of when. There's a process that's underway at the
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  Speaker 2: moment whereby anybody can nominate to be in the pot
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  Speaker 2: to be the prime minister. They require eighty one signatures
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  Speaker 2: of MPs and also some backing from the unions to
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  Speaker 2: be able to do that. Now Andy Burnham has that
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  Speaker 2: amount of support. If no one else is able to
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  Speaker 2: get a similar support, then he will be what they
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  Speaker 2: call over here. He will get the coronation, which means
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  Speaker 2: he's elected unopposed, and basically he's not elected, he's anointed
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  Speaker 2: as the Prime minister. If there is another candidate, and
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  Speaker 2: there's a school of thought being suggested, certainly by the
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  Speaker 2: center and the center right of the Labor Party, they're
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  Speaker 2: keen to have someone stand against Andy Burnham to just
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  Speaker 2: test him about some of his policies, to make sure
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  Speaker 2: he's articulated what he's going to do if he becomes
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  Speaker 2: Prime minister. Now, a couple of names have been thrown
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  Speaker 2: in the mix. Darren Jones, he's a very upright, staied
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  Speaker 2: right hand man of Keir Starmer. He's been suggested as
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  Speaker 2: someone that they could put forward. And also Al Kahnes,
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  Speaker 2: who is also in one of the junior defense portfolio
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  Speaker 2: until he resigned last week. He's very ambitious within the
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  Speaker 2: party and it could be that he perhaps stands he
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  Speaker 2: won't win. Everybody realizes that Andy Burnham has the numbers
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  Speaker 2: against anybody, but it is just a way of the
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  Speaker 2: party being sure that Andy Burnham knows what he's going
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  Speaker 2: to implement once he's the Prime minister.
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  Speaker 1: This seems to me from the outside, Jack like a
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  Speaker 1: bit of a no brainer. They've got a very unpopular
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  Speaker 1: prime minister, a candidate has just been elected who is
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  Speaker 1: articulate and for the moment popular.
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  Speaker 3: So at seven minutes past three in the morning, Andy
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  Speaker 3: Burnham wins the Makerfield by election by more than nine
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  Speaker 3: thousand votes. He will hope that gives him a springboard
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  Speaker 3: to make his way to Downing Street.
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  Speaker 1: It seems madness to now have about it to decide
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  Speaker 1: whether or not to anoint him. Why not just go ahead.
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  Speaker 2: While they do do politics over here very differently and
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  Speaker 2: on a different timescale, because the nominations for somebody to
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  Speaker 2: consider running only opens on July nine and then closes
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  Speaker 2: on July sixteen, So the earliest at Annie Burnham could
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  Speaker 2: be anointed as Prime Minister would be July seventeen. But
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  Speaker 2: he also wants a little bit of time himself. People
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  Speaker 2: around him are suggesting he'd like the summer, the British summer,
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  Speaker 2: to be able to put together his team and to
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  Speaker 2: be able to articulate his policies and essentially not rush
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  Speaker 2: into the job. Now you would think that this would
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  Speaker 2: be the case if the economies are roaring success and
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  Speaker 2: everybody's happy, go lucky and really looking forward to the
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  Speaker 2: British summer. But that's not the case. The country is
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  Speaker 2: in dire situation. The debt levels are extraordinary and growing,
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  Speaker 2: three trillion pounds worth of debt, and the interest bill
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  Speaker 2: on that debt is climbing because of the political uncertainty.
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  Speaker 2: So essentially they need a prime minister in place to
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  Speaker 2: calm the markets, to reassure the financial markets that there's
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  Speaker 2: not going to be huge amounts of government borrowing. Even
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  Speaker 2: though Andy Burnham is very far left of the party
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  Speaker 2: and he's talking about nationalizing energy facilities and transport and
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  Speaker 2: introducing rent controls and steming investment.
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  Speaker 4: But I do say to my own party, this is
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  Speaker 4: a final chance to change. This is what people said
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  Speaker 4: directly to me on the hundreds of doorsteps that I
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  Speaker 4: stood on. We must hear it, we must act upon it,
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  Speaker 4: and we must get it right. There will be no
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  Speaker 4: second chance.
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  Speaker 2: So it's going to be seen how all those policies
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  Speaker 2: are going to be paid for, because anyone who's had
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  Speaker 2: any money has left the country. There are more welfare
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  Speaker 2: recipients than there are taxpayers, and he's very hamstrung with
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  Speaker 2: the extent of change he wants to introduce because the
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  Speaker 2: financial situation of the economy won't allow it.
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  Speaker 1: He is, of course on the left of the Labor
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  Speaker 1: Party and he says he has a plan to blow
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  Speaker 1: up forty years of neoliberalism. But Andy Burnham's an insider.
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  Speaker 1: I mean, he's been a cabinet secretary, He's run for
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  Speaker 1: the leadership twice and failed before. He's now been a
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  Speaker 1: local mayor. He went and became the mayor of Greater
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  Speaker 1: Manchester when it was clear that he didn't have a
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  Speaker 1: chance of getting the Labor leadership last time around. What
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  Speaker 1: is it about him that makes him different? Why is
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  Speaker 1: he so popular?
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  Speaker 2: One He increased the Labor majority in the by election,
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  Speaker 2: so he's the only one who's done that in recent times.
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  Speaker 2: He's also got a record of nine years as mayor
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  Speaker 2: of Manchester where the Manchester area and region was the
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  Speaker 2: only area that was booming in the UK while the
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  Speaker 2: rest of the UK was going backward. He was managing
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  Speaker 2: to attract investment and bringing about a sense of calm
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  Speaker 2: and a sense of prosperity to the North and people
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  Speaker 2: want to see that replicated throughout the rest of the
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  Speaker 2: country and that's why they're putting great stocks in his
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  Speaker 2: charm and the way he communicates his policies. But as
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  Speaker 2: I've mentioned, there isn't a lot of room for him
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  Speaker 2: to put in place what the radical change that he
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  Speaker 2: would like to introduce, so he will be hamstrung. And
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  Speaker 2: whether that's enough to satisfy the left side of the
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  Speaker 2: party remains to be seen because they've got challenges from
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  Speaker 2: the Green Party of course, and then on the right
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  Speaker 2: side of the party you have the threat from Reform UK.
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  Speaker 1: Two years ago Kirs Talma vanquished the hard left of
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  Speaker 1: the Labor Party in a cloud of accusations of anti Semitism.
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  Speaker 1: Jeremy Corbyn was kicked out of the party by Kis Tarma.
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  Speaker 1: But it's been the left that has made it difficult
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  Speaker 1: for Keirstalma to bring in the tough reforms that he
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  Speaker 1: wanted to bring in to begin to pay down some
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  Speaker 1: of that debt. Jack. It was the left who stopped
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  Speaker 1: him from or made him reverse his policy on cutting
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  Speaker 1: winter fuel payments to pensioners, for example.
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  Speaker 5: And as the economy improves, we want to make sure
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  Speaker 5: people feel those improvements in their days as their lives
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  Speaker 5: go forward, and that is why we want to ensure
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  Speaker 5: that as we go forward more pensioners are eligible for
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  Speaker 5: winter fuel payments. As you would expect, mister Speaker, we
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  Speaker 5: will only make decisions we can afford.
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  Speaker 1: That is why he's been forced to reverse his position
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  Speaker 1: on other welfare reforms. How can Andy Burnham deal with
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  Speaker 1: that hard left of the party if he is going
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  Speaker 1: to make any kind of changes that the rest of
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  Speaker 1: Britain wants, not just the left wing backbenches.
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  Speaker 2: I think there's going to be a bit of financial
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  Speaker 2: skillfully rearranging the deck chairs here. I think he said
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  Speaker 2: that he wants to stay within the fiscal constraints of
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  Speaker 2: the manifesto under which Kis Starmer was operating. But I
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  Speaker 2: think that we'll find that some of his new policies
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  Speaker 2: will sit outside of that manifesto and he will be
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  Speaker 2: relying on the goodwill of the people to give him
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  Speaker 2: a go. He'll have a honeymoon period where he may
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  Speaker 2: be able to implement some of these policies, but I
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  Speaker 2: give it less than a year really until the population
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  Speaker 2: realizes that what he's proposing is unsustainable and there will
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  Speaker 2: be economic pain felt throughout the land. Already, the middle
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  Speaker 2: class and workers are really struggling to just put food
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  Speaker 2: on the table and pay huge cost of living pressures
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  Speaker 2: and to squeeze that lemon even further. I just don't
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  Speaker 2: know the lemon's dry. I really don't know how they're
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  Speaker 2: going to raise even more monies to be able to
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  Speaker 2: implement much drastic change that they want to do to
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  Speaker 2: satisfy the left wing of the party.
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  Speaker 1: Keirstama, like all politicians losing their jobs, made one of
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  Speaker 1: the best speeches of his career. Came out the front
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  Speaker 1: of ten Downing Street and sounded like a real human being.
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  Speaker 1: He was emotional, he was warm.
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  Speaker 5: Walking up this street two years ago was the proudest
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  Speaker 5: moment of my life.
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  Speaker 1: He rattled off a list of achievements, some of which
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  Speaker 1: he had been forced into by his own backbitch, and
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  Speaker 1: some of which are fairly dubious achievements at all.
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  Speaker 5: I was told time and time again that my party
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  Speaker 5: was finished, that we were consigned to history, that a
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  Speaker 5: majority at the general election, let alone a landslide majority,
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  Speaker 5: was impossible. But we proved those people wrong because we
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  Speaker 5: changed our party, ripping out the poison of anti Semitism,
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  Speaker 5: restoring trust on the economy, defense a national security. I'm
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  Speaker 5: becoming a party that once again stood proudly with not
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  Speaker 5: against our national flag.
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  Speaker 1: What does he actually want. I mean, he's got the
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  Speaker 1: prospect of potentially hanging around as Prime Minister until September.
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  Speaker 2: Jack.
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  Speaker 1: That would mean he could go to a couple of
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  Speaker 1: international meetings. Does he really want that.
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  Speaker 2: Well, he's keen to go to NATO because there's a
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  Speaker 2: proposal that there's going to be a United European UK
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  Speaker 2: Defense Pact that will help with the defense of the
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  Speaker 2: continent and that's quite an important policy to be implementing.
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  Speaker 2: And then there's a reset with the EU. Now we're
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  Speaker 2: not talking about Brexit. It's ten years to the day
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  Speaker 2: actually since Brexit came into play.
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  Speaker 1: It happened.
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  Speaker 3: The United Kingdom officially severed ties with the European Union
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  Speaker 3: last night as the Brexit transition period ended at eleven
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  Speaker 3: pm UK time.
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  Speaker 2: Brexit hasn't but he wants to bring the UK closer
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  Speaker 2: to the EU and leave that as perhaps a little
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  Speaker 2: bit of a legacy. We're talking about fresh produce and
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  Speaker 2: some manufactured goods not being able to have to go
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  Speaker 2: through customs clearances. But he also wants to put in
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  Speaker 2: place and embed the social media ban that he copied
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  Speaker 2: from Australia. So he wants to make sure that that's
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  Speaker 2: also going to go through the Commons without any issues.
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  Speaker 5: This is a big step, real change for our children
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  Speaker 5: and our future.
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  Speaker 2: But of course he may be gone in a couple
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  Speaker 2: of weeks, and as you know, once you've announced your retirement,
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  Speaker 2: you're in lame dark. So it does mean that the
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  Speaker 2: country is limping along almost rudderless and over the summer.
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  Speaker 2: It seems to me that people just are sick of
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  Speaker 2: politics a little bit. You know, even politicians are siger
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  Speaker 2: of all the drama and they're keen to have a
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  Speaker 2: bit of a break. So I think they're all looking
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  Speaker 2: forward to the summer break and then starting ah when
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  Speaker 2: they all come back to work in September. But I
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  Speaker 2: can tell you businesses are horrified. Workers are horrified because
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  Speaker 2: everybody else is really just trying to put their head
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  Speaker 2: down and get on with things, and we've got the
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  Speaker 2: political situation in such chaos.
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  Speaker 1: You've seen a lot of leadership changes since you've been
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  Speaker 1: covering this beat for The Australian Jack, do you have
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  Speaker 1: any optimism that Andy Burnham really can do politics differently
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  Speaker 1: as he says that he really is different, that he's
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  Speaker 1: really going to change things up.
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  Speaker 2: I think that they're just shuffling the deck chairs. Andy
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  Speaker 2: Burnham is a little bit more charismatic than Keir Starmer,
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  Speaker 2: so he'll perhaps deliver things in a friendlier way. But
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  Speaker 2: really I think it will come down to a general election,
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  Speaker 2: and I think that there will be a general election
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  Speaker 2: before twenty twenty nine, which is when it's forecast to
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  Speaker 2: be held. I don't think the country will be able
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  Speaker 2: to withstand any more chaos and upheaval that they've had
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  Speaker 2: and lasts that long. I think that we will go
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  Speaker 2: to the polls sooner rather than later.
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  Speaker 1: Well, Jack, I'm sure it won't be the last time
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  Speaker 1: we talk about it. Thank you very much, thank you.
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  Speaker 1: Jacqueline Magney is The Australian's europe correspondent. You can read
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  Speaker 1: all our coverage of this story live right now at
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  Speaker 1: the Australian dot com dot au