For many within the Labour movement, Andy Burnham is the man to save the party from potential electoral disaster and the country from the hard-right grip of a Reform UK government.
Should he win the Makerfield by-election next week, it is widely anticipated that he will challenge Sir Keir Starmer’s leadership, with MPs hoping he will then steer Labour to a second term at the next general election.
His avuncular style and common touch set him apart from the prevailing view of the process-driven approach of the current Prime Minister, whom critics accuse of being unable to connect with the electorate.
But having once been seen as the popular “King of the North”, the extra scrutiny on policies and comments from the Mayor of Greater Manchester has forced Burnham into a series of about turns in recent weeks.
Here, The i Paper looks at the several U-turns Burnham has embarked on since announcing his decision to stand in the Makerfield by-election.
Waspi women
Burnham set hares racing this week when he appeared to reopen the debate around compensating the so-called Waspi women, who claim they lost out on pension payments due to the raising of the state pension age.
The 56-year-old said he would “stick by the Waspi women because they deserve some recompense for the unfairness”.
The comment sparked a major backlash among Labour MPs, including those in support of Burnham’s return to Westminster, and forced his camp to insist that recompense did not mean the approximate £10bn to top up those lost pension payments.
Instead, his team claimed he meant non-financial compensation and pointed to his efforts as mayor giving Waspi women in the city-region “early access to concessionary travel, providing some recompense to them within affordability limits”.
Hock to the bond markets
Burnham has repeatedly insisted his words from a New Statesman interview ahead of last year’s Labour conference, in which he said, “We’ve got to get beyond this thing of being in hock to the bond markets,” were taken out of context.
But the thrust of the interview was clear in that he disagreed with the straitjacket it placed on the Government’s fiscal plans. His emergence as a viable challenger to Starmer has since prompted jitters within the bond markets that he would ditch the current fiscal rules, should he clinch the keys to No 10.
This movement in the markets has prompted his camp to state on the record that: “He supports the fiscal rules. He has no plans to change them.”
Full third term
Another promise that has come back to haunt Burnham is his previous insistence that he would see out his third term as Mayor of Greater Manchester. Speaking to GB News at the 2024 Labour Party Conference, Burnham said: “I am committed to my third term, absolutely. I’m not planning to head back to Westminster any time soon.”
Fast forward less than two years and the former member of parliament tried and failed to secure selection as Labour’s candidate in the Gorton and Denton by-election before successfully landing his place in the upcoming Makerfield poll.
Benefits for migrants
Back in 2023, Burnham co-signed a letter addressed to the then Tory ministers Suella Braverman and Michael Gove demanding that the government of the day reconsider its restrictions on immigrants from securing certain benefit payments. It was one of several occasions when the former Cabinet minister called out the Conservatives’ introduction of its rule known as “no recourse to public funds” that prevents migrants from claiming government support.
But standing in the Red Wall seat of Makerfield, where his strongest challenge is from Reform, Burnham has had to recalibrate his comments around immigration, including his position calling for ministers to roll back the no recourse rule.
A spokeswoman last month said Burnham “recognises that towns across this country want an immigration system to be fair and they want to know that the government has control”.
Brexit
Another stance that has shifted in less than a year is his position on rejoining the European Union. Speaking to Labour activists during the party’s annual conference last year, Burnham said: “I want to rejoin the EU. I hope it happens in my lifetime… I believe in unions of all kinds. The union of the UK. The European Union and the benefits it brought this country.”
This year, he told the left-leaning New Statesman magazine that the party should adopt “a stronger argument about Brexit having been a mistake”.
But since standing in Makerfield, where 65 per cent voted in favour of Brexit, his support for rejoining has gone quiet, and instead he has said Labour should “respect the result” and that there should not be a referendum on re-entering the bloc, at least not in the short term.
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