Who is Andy Burnham? Labour Party leader set to be next UK prime minister | World

Andy Burnham is set to become the United Kingdom’s next prime minister after emerging as the sole candidate to succeed Keir Starmer as leader of the governing Labour Party.

The party is expected to formally announce Burnham as its new leader on Friday, paving the way for him to take office after Starmer tenders his resignation to King Charles III on Monday.

Who is Andy Burnham?

Burnham, 56, is a veteran Labour politician and the former Mayor of Greater Manchester, a role he held after serving as a Member of Parliament and cabinet minister under previous Labour governments.

Widely regarded as one of Labour’s strongest communicators, he has built a reputation for championing regional development, public services and devolution, often positioning himself as a prominent voice for northern England.

Although he has been prime minister-in-waiting for weeks, Burnham has revealed little about his broader policy agenda.

After returning to Parliament through a by-election last month, he pledged to build a politics “based on unity and hope” and create an economy that delivers growth more evenly across the country.

Andy Burnham’s policies

In his first speech as Labour leader, Burnham is expected to outline plans focused on economic renewal, expanding public control over key sectors and creating modern industrial jobs. He is also expected to argue that Britain took “a series of wrong turns” during the 1980s, referring to the era of former Conservative Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, whose policies of privatisation, deindustrialisation and centralisation reshaped the UK’s economy.

Burnham has also identified reforming social care as a key priority, saying he wants to address unequal access to care for older people and those living with illness or disabilities, an issue that successive Labour and Conservative governments have struggled to resolve.

Turmoil in UK government

He takes over at a difficult time for Labour. The party has faced declining public support amid a sluggish economy, a prolonged cost-of-living crisis, overstretched public services and political fallout from the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East. Labour has also trailed the anti-immigration Reform UK party in recent opinion polls and suffered heavy losses in local elections earlier this year.

Starmer announced his resignation last month after two years in office, saying he would step down following mounting pressure from within the party after a series of political setbacks.

Under the UK’s parliamentary system, a governing party can replace its leader, and therefore the prime minister, without holding a general election. Once Starmer formally resigns, King Charles III is expected to invite Burnham to form a government. Burnham will become Britain’s seventh prime minister since 2016.