Andy Burnham’s sweeping victory in the Makerfield by-election has set him on course to become the next prime minister.
The new MP, and outgoing Mayor of Greater Manchester, is understood to want Sir Keir Starmer to set out a timetable for his departure in the coming days, and to be in Downing Street by September.
The prime minister has continued to insist he “will stand” in any Labour leadership contest, however. despite calls from Labour backbenchers for him to set an exit date.
If Burnham does manage to topple Stamer – either by winning a leadership battle or via a coronation – his record in government and his mayoralty in Manchester give a picture of what his premiership might look like.
Taxes
Burnham has said he will honour the commitment in Labour’s 2024 general election manifesto not to increase the three biggest taxes – income tax, VAT or national insurance.
Launching his by-election campaign last month, he said: “I am committed to the manifesto commitments on tax, I think that’s really important from a trust point of view.”
He did, however, argue there was room to be “more radical” within the confines of these promises.
This is a U-turn from last year, when he said there was “definitely a case” to reintroduce the 50p top rate of income tax before the end of the current Parliament.
He appeared to backtrack in an interview with The Observer last month, saying: “I think we need to tread carefully and carry people with us, not necessarily going straight to new areas of division and conflict.”
On Question Time earlier this month, Burnham suggested he was open to effectively cutting tax by raising the personal allowance, which is currenlty £12,570.
Aside from the three main taxes, Burnham recently told The Guardian he “wouldn’t flinch” from his idea to introduce a “care levy” to fund a national care service.
When he was health secretary in 2009 under Gordon Brown, he proposed a levy on estates to pay for universal social care. In recent years, he has talked about replacing inheritance tax with a progressive “care levy” to fund a national care service.
He also appears keen on a land value tax (LVT) to replace council tax – a move which his allies from the North of England are clamouring for. “I think land is under-taxed,” he said recently, adding that he has “long been persuaded of the argument for a land value tax”.
Shortly after these comments, however, s spokesperson for Burnham said he “did not propose any changes to the tax system” and supports that manifesto.
In his first policy pledge for the Labour leadership, Burnham promised to cut business rates for pubs and music venues by 20 per cent and abolish them for independent cafes, shops and hairdressers.
Welfare
Burnham has vowed to slash the welfare bill to boost defence, but has said he prefers holistic reform focused on tackling the root causes of youth unemployment rather than changes to eligibility for benefits.
Speaking to The i Paper, he said the welfare bill should be reduced by “rethinking the education system” and supporting young people into work rather than “crude cuts”, backing Alan Milburn’s initial report on youth unemployment.
He also plans to draw inspiration from Greater Manchester’s experience of running devolved employment support programmes, linking up services and giving local leaders more powers to support people into work.
However, Jonathan Cribb, deputy director at the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS), questioned whether these policies would convince the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) that “significant savings” could be made in the short term.
If he becomes PM, he will find himself bound by the same economic constraints and may have to make bigger changes to the welfare bill, which is predicted to hit £400bn by the end of the decade, according to the OBR.
A key driver of this is the state pension triple lock – the guarantee that pensions will rise by the higher of 2.5 per cent, inflation or average wage growth.
Burnham has committed to maintaining the lock until at least the end of this Parliament, but has not commented on what would happen to the policy beyond 2029.
He has also hinted that the next government should “look at” the tax paid by pensioners.
He said the growing number of older people being drawn into paying income tax through frozen tax thresholds – “fiscal drag” – was an issue that the next government “need[s] to look at as well”.
Migration
Burnham has recently vowed to expand detention of migrants and speed up returns for failed claimants.
Last week, he told BBC Radio Manchester that small-boat crossings spoke to a sense that “the country isn’t functioning properly” and that the Government needed to “go further”.
He called for “greater use of detention so that people who have no basis for a claim are not actually admitted into the country”, with faster returns for failed claimants.
Allies of Burnham have told The Times he wants to trigger break clauses in 10-year Home Office accommodation contracts due to expire in 2029, ending the use of hotels and shifting responsibility for housing migrants to local authorities.
Keir Starmer has also pledged to end the use of hotels by 2029.
This would likely involve placing asylum seekers in bedsits and houses in multiple occupation rather than hotels.
Burnham has moved away from his previous support for scrapping the no recourse to public funds (NRPF) policy, which bars migrants on work, study or family visas from claiming benefits — including universal credit and housing support — until they obtain indefinite leave to remain.
He signed a letter in 2023 calling on the then-Conservative government to “end NRPF in order to end rough sleeping”. His team has since told The Times he no longer stands by that position.
Housing
Burnham has already said that if he were prime minister, he would oversee a mass programme of housebuilding like that implemented after the Second World War.
This was also hinted at by Angela Rayner, who promised a “council house building revolution” during her time as housing secretary. The current government has pledged to build 1.5m homes in the course of this Parliament – but is struggling to meet this target.
Based on Manchester’s skyscrapers, you also could expect Burnham to be pro-private developer and housebuilding.
On the whole, if he implemented similar policies to those he has brought in in Manchester, he would be, in his own words, “more interventionist” than the current Government.
As Mayor of Greater Manchester, he launched his Good Landlord Charter across the region which set out good practices, stipulated that landlords should keep homes “affordable” and, crucially, made funding available for landlords to retrofit their properties and improve accessibility for disabled people.
Like London Mayor Sadiq Khan, Burnham has also repeatedly called for the central Government to give regional mayors the power to implement rent controls in their area. However, he was never given the power to do this in the Greater Manchester Combined Authority (GMCA) by central Government.
He also has a reputation for housebuilding, launching the Manchester Good Growth Fund in 2025. This is a £1bn state-funded scheme that has backed housing and infrastructure schemes across Greater Manchester to boost growth.
Just before Christmas, he revealed plans in The i Paper to reduce the number of families with children living in temporary accommodation by giving the GMCA £11.7m to buy thousands of empty homes to house homeless families.
Burnham said he was prepared to use compulsory purchase orders to bring empty homes into public ownership.
However, some claim that Manchester’s redevelopment began before Burnham was mayor, under the leadership of Sir Richard Leese as leader of the council and Sir Howard Bernstein as chief executive – although Burnham is also said to have subsequently played his role.
Defence
Burnham recently revealed that a 10-year approach to defence and public investment would be a key pillar of his plan for power.
He told The Times he was “not squeamish” about wanting to reduce the welfare bill to fund defence, outlining plans to boost British industry while supporting young people into work.
He said every government procurement contract must include a “social value” commitment, such as work placements or apprenticeships for young people, and that ministers should explicitly favour British industry.
“To me the fact that Britain has not had a very strong intentional approach to British procurement is crazy,” he told the newspaper.
It comes after Defence Secretary John Healey resigned from Starmer’s Government, followed by Armed Forces minister Al Carns hours later, with both accusing the PM of failing to provide enough funds to protect the country in the long-awaited Defence Investment Plan (DIP).
The Treasury is said to have offered £13.5bn of the £18bn needed to make Britain war-ready, which amounts to £10bn in cash terms – or just a 0.08 per cent increase in GDP.
Brexit/Europe
Burnham will face immediate pressure to agree tricky Brexit reset deals if he takes over as prime minister next month with EU sources suggesting he will not rip up difficult compromises agreed under Sir Keir Starmer.
EU sources made clear that Brussels would go ahead with the planned summit with the UK on 22 July – at which it is hoped deals are to be agreed on youth mobility, food and drink trade, and aligning carbon taxes – even if Starmer is replaced in No 10.
He could face immediate decisions on difficult trade-offs on visas issued to EU nationals under-30 and become a rule-taker from Brussels on food and drink trade ahead of the summit – if he is prime minister by then.
One source said “it seems unlikely that Burnham would go against the compromises” agreed under Starmer, suggesting he would face having to defend decisions that he has not made and which are likely to be criticised by the Conservative Party and Reform UK.
On Europe, Burnham has previously gone further than any of his rivals. Speaking at a fringe event at Labour’s Liverpool conference in September 2025, he said he hoped to see the UK rejoin the EU in his lifetime – a position well beyond the Government’s current reset – and has repeatedly described Brexit as a financial “disaster”.
As prime minister, that could probably mean a greater ambition on the EU relationship than the current reset allows for.
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