Burnham’s coup was completed in the June 2026 Makerfield by-election. 

This Makerfield contest stands as the source of Burnham’s political authority and, indeed, his claim to the premiership itself. The popular validation of his project by a Reform-facing constituency converted his candidacy into an irresistible political proposition. The bonds of loyalty and procedural safeguards that secured Keir Starmer in Downing Street simply melted away.

In his victory speech on Friday afternoon, Burnham reiterated the story of Makerfield. A total of 379 MPs, he said, had “heard the call from the people of Makerfield, on behalf of forgotten places everywhere up and down this country, for a return of the Labour they once knew.”

One consequence of Burnham’s coronation is that Labour has avoided the drawn-out infighting and self-destruction that leadership contests so often produce. The PLP has deposed a prime minister with only limited chaos – notwithstanding West’s best efforts. Labour MPs have avoided a damaging repeat of the July-September 2022 Conservative leadership contest, which delivered Liz Truss as prime minister, and skipped straight to the coronation phase. 

But the Labour Party still has difficult questions to confront. A carefully managed coronation may avoid the visible chaos of a contest, but it cannot extinguish the deeper questions surrounding the failure of Keir Starmer’s tenure as prime minister, or the forces that brought about his downfall. 

Burnham’s elevation was uncontested. But the settlement that follows – the style, priorities and ideological direction of the incoming government – will not be.

The risk is that divisions left unaired this summer will continue to rumble beneath the surface. Since leaving office, Rishi Sunak has argued that the circumstances of his coronation and the parliamentary gerrymandering of the 1922 committee damaged his authority by leaving underlying arguments unresolved.

A similar dynamic now hangs over Labour. Even as MPs bask in the regal glow of Burnham’s coronation, there are already signs that the questions suppressed by the absence of a succession struggle are beginning to resurface.

The debate over the direction of Burnham’s government has been channelled into speculation over who will run the Treasury. This choice already carries a level of importance and symbolic weight not attached to the selection of a chancellor for decades.

The intrigue has intensified in recent days as the field of candidates has narrowed to Ed Miliband, the energy secretary, and Shabana Mahmood, the home secretary. The significance of this choice lies in what the two candidates represent within Burnham’s political coalition.

Mahmood is the most prominent government figure associated with the Blue Labour tradition. As home secretary, she has sought to translate elements of its political philosophy into policy. In the case of her proposed reforms to indefinite leave to remain (ILR), Mahmood’s politics has placed her at the sharp end of progressive criticism of the Starmer government.

Ed Miliband is probably the figurehead of Labour’s “soft left” elements. The soft left has the strongest claim on the Burnham settlement; its organised elements, represented by the relaunched Tribune group, played a leading role in Starmer’s downfall, and it is the political tradition with which Burnham has historically been most closely identified. Louise Haigh, a key Burnham lieutenant, led the relaunch of the Tribune group; she is likely to assume the post of chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster. 

The case for Miliband is that his political and intellectual clout could drive radical economic reform in the face of institutional resistance. Miliband has an identifiable political economy that Mahmood, at least during her time in government as home secretary and justice secretary, has not articulated with the same clarity.

Starmer maintained Miliband, in the face of incessant and hostile briefing, but never fully embraced him. Burnham appointing his longstanding ally as chancellor would represent a statement of intent therefore, and a symbolic pivot against economic orthodoxy. Mainstream, the soft left group that has backed Burnham since its launch, called this week for the appointment of a “progressive chancellor with vision, values and a record of delivering structural change; someone who understands the threat that climate breakdown poses to people and planet and who has the courage to rebuild our state’s productive capacity.”

But there remains considerable antipathy towards Miliband among parts of the Labour Party, who still associate him with the 2015 general election defeat. The risk is that his appointment would disrupt the soft-blue unity that carried Burnham from Makerfield to Downing Street.

Burnham’s soft-blue politics

The end of Keir Starmer came when the criticisms of the Blue Labour and soft left schools converged.

Intriguingly, Burnham embraced a soft-blue analysis in his victory speech. He referred to a “generation of politicians” who had failed to challenge “an economic model that simply doesn’t work well enough for ordinary people.”

In his broadside blasting four decades of failure, Burnham offered no carve-out for Keir Starmer.

The incoming prime minister declared: “Four decades of the neoliberalism that began in the 1980s have not been kind to the places that built our party, nor to the communities across the UK in rural and coastal areas. So we pledge today to them to be better.”

He added: “Political power was centralised and economic power was privatised. The country surrendered control of the essentials – housing, water, energy, transport – and left people exposed to higher costs.

“That, in turn, led to the concentration of more wealth and power in the hands of fewer people and fewer places. Large parts of Britain were deindustrialised without the power to set new ambitions for themselves.”

In the speech’s most effective passage, Burnham proclaimed: “The right used the phrase ‘take back control’ – but they are the ones who gave it away in the first place.

“If we want an economy and a country that works for all people and places – which to me should always be at the very core of Labourism – then it requires a new path to the one we’ve been on for the last 40 years.”

Burnham’s economic radicalism represents a tune that the PLP can sing in relative unison. Starmer neglected the importance of articulating a political analysis as prime minister, and of playing to the crowd.

The formation of the new Reindustrialisation Research Group (ReRG) of Labour MPs will provide Burnham’s analysis with stronger institutional grounding in the PLP. The group similarly symbolises the unity between the “blue” and “soft” wings of the Labour Party that has characterised Burnham’s campaign. The caucus counts Yuan Yang, who relaunched the Tribune group alongside Haigh, and Jonathan Hinder, arguably this parliament’s most prominent Blue Labour MP, among its members.

The ReRG has endorsed the “Makerfield test” posed by Burnham in his first speech as a Labour MP – a pledge to “ensure the places Westminster has neglected will now get fairness”. What this test will mean in practice remains unclear. As a guiding principle, however, it could provide a framework for Burnham’s coalition to rally around.

Burnham’s first steps as Labour leader indicate his intention to preserve the soft-blue alliance that delivered Starmer’s downfall and brought him to power. That would point towards the appointment of Mahmood as chancellor, establishing a soft-blue axis at the centre of government. This is consistent with the current state of reporting.

Burnham begins

The early months of a Burnham government will probably not be defined by sweeping policy changes – the sort of issues that risk reopening wounds in the Labour Party. Rather, the incoming prime minister’s immediate focus will be geared toward earning a public hearing. Burnham inherits a Labour Party whose credibility has been damaged by successive U-turns and a public that simply stopped listening to Starmer. The former mayor will undertake a form of political penance on behalf of his party (for decisions he did not make), thus building distance between his leadership and the Starmer government.

But Burnham’s analysis of the failures of successive governments will soon need to be channelled into a positive policy programme. It will be up to him to define what it means to be “boldly, confidently, authentically” Labour. And it is in these grey areas that the competition for the soul of the Burnham government will be fought. The incoming prime minister’s greatest challenges will come when events or policy test the unity of his coalition, including on Europe and immigration. 

But pitching to this set of Labour MPs, at this moment, Burnham’s rhetoric is right.

The question that will determine Burnham’s success in the immediate term is whether his decisions, including his choice of chancellor, can match his rhetoric and sustain the coalition that carried him to power.

Josh Self is editor of Politics.co.uk, follow him on Bluesky here and X here.