Prime Minister Andy Burnham arrives to host his first Cabinet meeting at 10 Downing Street, 21 July 2026 (PA Images / Alamy)

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Friends and supporters of Burnham have secured top jobs over recent days, while those closest to Keir Starmer have been jettisoned.

“When you take the lid off Labour factionalism, you can’t put it back on. They are storing up problems for the future,” warned one Starmer loyalist source. “This is far from a clean slate.”

Defenders of Burnham’s approach to ministerial appointments have stressed that he sold himself as a departure from the last leadership, which inevitably means making significant changes to the team.

They also point out that the retention of Emma Reynolds and Pat McFadden, among others, shows the Prime Minister has not shunned the Labour right.

Below Cabinet level, in the hires announced later in the week, Starmerites and non-Burnhamites have done better. Josh MacAlister and Jake Richards are among those who have held on to their ministerial jobs. The decision to make Dan Tomlinson a minister for growth is notable and a win for the Labour Growth Group.

On the Labour left, there is disappointment that Ed Miliband was not made chancellor and a view that John Healey’s appointment ends any chance of the Burnham premiership representing bold change as they see it. No Socialist Campaign Group MPs have been picked for roles so far.

The soft left are delighted, meanwhile, by their dominance in the new Cabinet – which has done much to reverse Starmer’s September 2025 reshuffle.

THE WINNERS

The Makerfield crew

Louise Haigh, who is now First Secretary of State and Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, and Anneliese Midgley, the new Chief Whip (The House reported in early June that she was interested in this position), were the two Labour MPs who ran Burnham’s Makerfield by-election bid as the political leads. In managing the campaign day-to-day, the pair established themselves as integral to the Burnham operation and have been promoted accordingly. 

Miatta Fahnbulleh, meanwhile, led on policy for Burnham, working from the South during the by-election in preparation for government – which came sooner than Burnham allies expected. Although she was thought to be interested in becoming housing secretary, she will instead head up the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero, having worked as a minister there until Starmer’s September reshuffle. 

And despite being energy secretary at the time, Miliband also played a role in the Makerfield by-election, even advising on the minute details of how the campaign was run according to Labour sources. Ultimately, after much briefing and counter-briefing, he did not secure the coveted role of chancellor but did nab a ‘great office of state’ by being appointed the new Foreign Secretary.

Other Burnham allies

Heidi Alexander is among the survivors of Starmer’s Cabinet, remaining as Transport Secretary. It comes as little surprise considering she is a longtime supporter of Burnham’s leadership ambitions, having nominated him for the post on all three of his bids – in 2010, 2015 and 2026. She was also understood to have told Starmer to set a timetable for his departure.

Lisa Nandy, Burnham’s Wigan neighbour who called on the party to allow him to run as a parliamentary candidate, has again defied critics by staying in post as Culture Secretary, while Lucy Powell – the only officer on Labour’s ruling body to vote in favour of permitting Burnham to stand in Gorton and Denton – has been brought back to the Cabinet as Education Secretary. Angela Rayner is another ally who was always expected to make a return and has done so, going back to her old job of Housing Secretary.

Less well-known is former Unison official Alex Norris, the new Justice Secretary who represents a Nottingham seat but is originally from Altrincham. He was expected to be rewarded after being seen to have handled a tricky brief well in the Home Office, where he handled illegal migration – but it also helps that he is close to a tight-knit circle of people around Burnham. He is seen as a “people person” who, accordingly, has been given another difficult job where those skills will come into play.

Starmer rebels

Like Heidi Alexander, Yvette Cooper and Shabana Mahmood are known to have made clear to Starmer that his time was up. All three have stayed in Cabinet. 

Anas Sarwar, who as Scottish Labour leader publicly called on Starmer to go, is leaving his post in Holyrood to enter the Lords and become a trade minister.

Streeting and Healey, meanwhile, both resigned in Starmer’s final weeks, representing big blows to his authority – particularly in the case of the former defence secretary. Healey’s damning verdict on the ex-PM being “unable” and the Treasury “unwilling” to sufficiently increase defence spending was a final nail in the coffin for the Starmer era.

Vicky Foxcroft, who quit as a whip last year amid the welfare rebellion, has returned as a DCMS minister.

Losers of the September 2025 reshuffle

Many of the notable moves in the infamous September 2025 reshuffle triggered by Rayner’s resignation – now back in her old Cabinet job – have been reversed by Burnham. 

The top-level sackings at the time were Powell and Ian Murray; the former is the new Education Secretary while the latter (who was ultimately demoted rather than removed completely, following an outcry) has stayed under Burnham as a minister of state in DCMS.

Aside from Powell, it was notable that Jonathan Reynolds was also moved from business and trade secretary to chief whip in a switch that baffled Westminster. Under Burnham, he has been returned to his former position, to which he is widely thought to be far better-suited, and will lead a “beefed up” DBT.

In the ministerial ranks, Rayner ally Justin Madders was the most noteworthy sacking, being removed as employment rights minister. He has now returned as a transport minister.

Rayner ally Jim McMahon, similarly, was a local government minister until his September sacking, and will now return to the department.

The North West

The North of England has done well under Burnham – and the North West especially so. Powell, Rayner, Reynolds, Nandy, Midgley and Angela Eagle all hail from Burnham’s region. This is up from just two Cabinet members from the North West under Starmer. See the changes mapped out on PoliticsHome.

The Co-operative Party

Labour’s sister outfit, the affiliated Co-operative Party, has much to celebrate under Burnham, who is himself the first ever officially Co-op Prime Minister. 

Reynolds will be able to put Co-op priorities into action as head of the bolstered Department of Business, Innovation, Science and Trade. Fahnbulleh will have the same opportunity to do so in Desnz, building on Miliband’s ‘Local Power Plan’ developed in conjunction with Co-op.

The appointments of Co-op MPs Norris (husband of Emma Foody, a whip who was Co-op assistant general secretary before entering Parliament) and Powell are wins too. Douglas Alexander, who remains in Cabinet, is also Co-op.

While Rayner is not officially a Labour and Co-op MP, she is often regarded as “spiritually” Co-op in that she has worked with the affiliate and is particularly sympathetic to its aims.

With peers Baroness Smith also reappointed, a quarter of all ministers attending Cabinet under Burnham are Co-op, and there are 22 Co-op ministers in total across 15 departments – a historic high.

Below Cabinet level, Co-op wins include Florence Eshalomi, who is leaving her Housing Committee chair role to go straight into MHCLG at ministerial level, Kirsty McNeill, promoted from junior Scottish minister to minister of state at the Foreign Office, Kate Dearden, bumped up from parliamentary under-secretary to become a minister of state at DBIST, and McMahon who has made a return to MHCLG. Luke Pollard, Stephen Doughty and Lord Coaker have also been reappointed.

Trade unions

There is some apprehension from those trade unions that lobby against net-zero over Fahnbulleh replacing Miliband as Energy Secretary – as a strong ally of his and an enthusiastic backer of decarbonisation, she is not generally expected to be less radical than her predecessor on the subject.

But unions have done well, overall, with Rayner, Midgley and Haigh in key roles and union-friendly Reynolds in DBIST.

The whips’ office, led by Midgley, is particularly good news for the unions, complete with GMB’s Laurence Turner and Usdaw’s Michael Wheeler being picked.

There was a call from the Prospect union last month for continuity around the government’s work on employment rights, with Mike Clancy writing for The House: “The Employment Rights Bill, as it once was, started with Angela Rayner, Jonathan Reynolds and Justin Madders in charge but was passed under Peter Kyle and Kate Dearden. 

“That personnel change caused delays, and I hope the new Prime Minister will reflect carefully on how they deliver continuity to this vital area of work. Minister Dearden in particular has skilfully conducted the various discussions needed to progress the consultation process.”

Dearden, formerly of Community union, now has a ‘future of work’ brief in the same department.

THE LOSERS

Starmer allies

The most notable losers from Burnham’s appointments are, of course, allies of Starmer, from David Lammy, Rachel Reeves, Darren Jones, Steve Reed and Jo Stevens being removed from Cabinet to Lord Hermer, Nick Thomas-Symonds and Baroness Chapman leaving as ministers who attended Cabinet.

Bridget Phillipson, who despite being briefed against during the Starmer era was kept in place by him as PM, was heavily demoted – losing her education brief and being left with the women and equalities role only, albeit remaining in Cabinet. A source said Burnham’s team were surprised she accepted the downgrade.

Neither Dan Jarvis nor James Murray, who stepped up to Cabinet roles when John Healey resigned as defence secretary and Streeting as health secretary, have been kept in Cabinet – though both have become ministers again.

Chris Ward, a former Starmer staffer before becoming an MP and perhaps his closest ally in the Parliamentary Labour Party, has left government as expected.

The Socialist Campaign Group 

On the other end of the Labour Party’s factional spectrum, the Socialist Campaign Group and other MPs on the Corbynite or ‘hard’ left are deeply disappointed – and some angry – to have been completely overlooked for ministerial roles. This is despite many having backed Burnham’s return and nominated him for the leadership.

“A lot of people are very unhappy,” one Labour left MP said. “So much for using all talents.” Although pleased about the cost of living policies announced, they added: “Everyone knows politics is brutal but this is just a big two fingers up to people.”

Londoners

Streeting and Fahnbulleh are the only full Cabinet members representing London seats under Burnham, whereas Starmer’s Cabinet had himself, Reed, Murray and David Lammy. The new PM does have Ellie Reeves and Matthew Pennycook as ministers attending Cabinet, however.

This shift away from London is defended by Burnham allies as a shift towards being more representative of the country.

YOU WIN SOME, YOU LOSE SOME

Blairites

Blairite Cabinet members Peter Kyle and Liz Kendall have both been sacked. The picture is mixed, however. McFadden remains Work and Pensions Secretary. Reynolds has been moved from Defra to become Chief Secretary to the Treasury. Streeting stays too, of course, though he is a unique case.

Among non-Cabinet ministers, some have been kept on – Baroness (Jacqui) Smith and Georgia Gould remain in post, and Alison McGovern has been moved sideways to health, for example – while others, like Sharon Hodgson, have not.

4 min read3 min

There’s a lot of talking, not a lot of action. Now, in Clacton’s by-election, much of the national conversation has been reduced to a choice between Nigel Farage and Count Binface.

I understand why Binface has struck a chord. Humour works when politics has become absurd, and a vote for a man wearing a bin on his head can feel more honest than supporting politicians who make promises and then disappear. He gives people a way to express their frustration. But Clacton needs more than an expression of frustration. It needs someone who will still be here when the cameras have gone, bringing people together and doing the unglamorous work of getting things done.

That is why I am standing as an independent candidate.

Like Clacton, I grew up in an area that was forgotten. Deindustrialisation and tourism decline has led to fewer opportunities. It has felt like decades of little to no political interest has been paid to people like us.I grew up on a council estate in a single-parent family and relied on free school meals. 

Forty seven per cent of Clacton’s residents over 16 are classified as “economically inactive. One in five working-age adults have never held a traditional job. 

Later, as a young adult, I found myself in a similar position – struggling. After a divorce, I was left struggling to pay my bills resulting in me being in £24,000 worth of debt and was constantly trying to make ends meet. If anyone has lived like that you know how that fear changes you. It also gives you a very good understanding of the difference between political soundbites and everyday life. 

What has changed my life is education, but not the education that I got in school – but financial education. This is the education we should be getting – what is a mortgage, what is tax, what is compounded interest. This education taught me about budgeting, credit and how money actually works. That education helped me clear my debt – it gave me a future. 

Real life solutions are what I want to bring to Clacton. I’ll give you an example – the people of Clacton have told me about the need for a local dentist, at present, if you need an NHS dentist you need to travel up to Colchester. Why are we not empowering a local entrepreneur to fill this void?! This is remedied with financial education – and if I get in – and if I don’t – we’ll get to the solution. 

This is why financial education sits at the heart of my priorities. If a single lesson on budgeting and money could have saved me years of struggle, imagine what it could do for every child growing up right now. This shouldn’t be a privilege for the lucky few. It should be normal.

But education alone isn’t enough. I want to work with residents, small businesses, schools, community groups and public bodies to find paths to thrive. I wantto help local businesses grow and bring empty units back to life whilst making sure taxpayers’ money is spent wisely. I don’t want to see Clacton’s future in The Bin(face).

When this by-election was called, the choice on offer seemed to be Nigel Farage or a bin. 

Now, Count Binface offers clever commentary on a political system that has let people down. But I’m offering something a little different, providing real life skills, commitment and something beyond a protest vote. 

I won’t pretend to have every answer. But I will always listen, I will always work hard, and I will always put the people of Clacton first. I want the people to of Clacton to have a real choice – not between personalities and punchlines – but someone who can help Clacton thrive, and that’s me, Abi Hookway.

Abi Hookway is an independent candidate for Clacton

Jill Rutter takes stock of Andy Burnham’s first few days in government.

After a couple of weeks when Andy Burnham went underground with few sightings in public, this week he has shown what he meant by hitting the ground running.

He appointed a Cabinet – with a heavy Manchester representation (5 members represent seats in Greater Manchester, and there are seven from the North West when two Liverpudlians are added in). London’s representation in the full Cabinet is down to two.

He rewarded those who backed him early and helped usher Keir Starmer out of the door. He dispensed with the services of those who had been some of the most frequent spokespeople for the Starmer regime –Darren Jones and Peter Kyle.  Expect to hear far more Northern accents as close allies like Louise Haigh, Jonny Reynolds (back at his old business department) and Lucy Powell become the preferred voices of the government.

There is a huge amount of churn at Cabinet level. But one good decision Burnham has made is to eschew much change at junior ministerial level with a lot of people continuing in post, and others, like Dan Jarvis, who was briefly Defence Secretary after John Healey quit, returning to his old Security Minister beat.

He has moved quickly to reorganise government. The most eye-catching move is the creation of so-called No.10 North, a Manchester base that the new PM will work from (an interesting question is whether his successors with seats well away from Greater Manchester will find that so appealing) but the most important moves are the rebadging and beefing up of the policy secretariats in the Cabinet Office as a new Office of the Prime Minister and Cabinet, with the other, less central tasks hived off into a ‘Onegov’ agency.  That starts to address a longstanding weakness in the UK government – that we expect the Prime Minister to drive a programme for government, then refuse to give him or her adequate resources to do it and then wonder why the well resourced permanent Treasury expands to fill the vacuum.

The Prime Minister is also transferring lead responsibility for the central planks of his reform programme to his new Manchester operation. They will lead on devolution strategy (taken over from the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government) – though it is not clear how far that stretches into local government reorganisation – and take over local economic growth from the Treasury. It will be interesting to see how that works with the Treasury’s interest in economic growth, Reynolds reassuming control of the modern industrial strategy he developed in his first outing as Business Secretary and Angela Rayner back to press on with the completion of the devolution map.

Burnham has followed the example of previous Prime Ministers and employed a loyal enforcer at the centre. But Louise Haigh is quite inexperienced compared to some of the earlier occupants of the role – she spent very little time as a minister before being forced to step down by Keir Starmer and the success of a lot of the changes will depend on her, and her ability to work well with the Cabinet Secretary.

The more surprising machinery of government changes are the dismemberment of Rishi Sunak’s Department of Science, Innovation and Technology. Science and innovation go to the ever changing business department, which gets renamed again; digital goes back to DCMS whence it came; and AI goes to the centre. This may, or may not, be a more sensible division of responsibilities than bundling these issues together. What is indubitable is that this sort of change creates distraction and disturbance, as the carve-up and reintegration take up the time and effort of senior leaders and usually end up with a price tag attached. The hope is that this change was much debated beforehand and the pros and cons were properly assessed before the changes were made.

Before taking office, Burnham promised a policy blitz. What has been notable is the nature of the policy announcements seen to date: Unpopular digital ID cards binned before even taking office on Sunday night; Tuesday morning, the decision to temporarily remove VAT (at 5%) from household electricity bills in England, Scotland and Wales; followed on Wednesday morning by taking the bus fares cap in England back to £2 in 2027.

The VAT cut (pending longer-term measures to create a ‘breathing space’ in cost of living pressures) was to be paid for by cancelling plans for digital ID cards: the problem for the government is that their predecessors had never identified how to pay for ID cards which were announced after the spending review was concluded. It’s not huge money in the scheme of things but it is a black mark against the civil service that they failed to stop the government falling into the trap of saying it would be paid for by the money saved by cancelling digital ID. This is a government – as the Prime Minister emphasised to the Cabinet – that needs to be seen to be reining in its potentially spendthrift inclinations.

The bus fare cap is also being funded out of a switch from international climate finance grants to loans. That against a backdrop where the UK aid budget is a fraction of what it once was, and presumably the money that now becomes repayable goes to poor countries saddled with a big climate adaptation or transition challenge.

Expect to see more of this, as what Burnham termed a “cost of living” government looks to subsidise household bills through “reprioritisation”. The rationale seems to be to reverse the experience of the Starmer government – which managed to squander any goodwill in a mess of badly landed policies, minor ethical transgressions and political tone deafness – by buying ‘breathing space’ to develop longer term plans with more promising paybacks. Reeves and Starmer seemed to think they needed to get the economics right, and the politics would follow (it didn’t help that they got the economics quite badly wrong at the Budget); Burnham will be hoping more attractive short-term politics will give time for the economics to come good.

The problem is that he, like Starmer and Reeves before him, faces a double bind of manifesto red lines at home and Trump-induced chaos abroad.  He has already pulled off one amazing transition – from barred by-election candidate to unopposed PM in less than six months: escaping that straitjacket would be a stunning second act.

By Jill Rutter, Senior Fellow, Institute for Government. 

4 min read10 min

The 2024 general election saw the greatest mismatch between the share of seats parties won compared to their share of the vote. Labour received two-thirds of the seats on just a third of the vote, whereas the Greens and Reform UK received just over one per cent of the seats between them for their combined 20 percent of the vote. Meanwhile, millions of votes didn’t count, with over 70 per cent cast – 21.2m – not directly affecting the outcome.

Part of the reason for this is that Westminster’s first-past-the-post (FPTP) voting system is designed for two parties and cannot cope with the multiparty politics we now have. This trend is not going away: the last general election was the first ever where four parties received over 10 per cent of the vote, and we now have five parties polling consistently over 10 per cent. The result is that Parliament is becoming less representative of the way people voted, and the next could be even more unrepresentative.

The link between what people express at the ballot box and the parliaments they get matters, which is why there are mounting calls for a move to proportional representation (PR). Simply put, PR is about making sure Parliament more accurately represents the way the country voted. We would argue that is the strongest foundation for our democracy.

To his credit, Burnham has himself diagnosed this problem, saying people feel politics isn’t working for them and that he backs moving to PR as part of a necessary “rewiring” of Westminster. In this, the new PM reflects growing support for electoral reform, as the British Social Attitudes Survey has recorded a consistent majority for scrapping FPTP in recent years for the first time since it started polling the question in the 1980s.

So, what happens next? Burnham has said he wants to win a mandate for PR by having it in the next Labour manifesto. Here again, he has considerable support within his own party. A solid majority of Labour members back PR, as do eight of the 11 Labour-affiliated trade unions, and there is a growing caucus of MPs now calling for electoral reform that spans all wings and factions of the party, as well as other parties in Parliament.

Next comes the thorny issue of which electoral system to propose. The UK already has decades of experience of proportional systems that maintain a strong constituency link, such as the Single Transferable Vote in Northern Ireland and the Additional Member System in Scotland and London.

Inaction would leave our democracy on a dangerous trajectory

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Burnham has backed a review of the voting system by an independent commission that would then recommend a system of PR for the UK to adopt.

This echoes the Royal Commission that New Zealand had in the 1980s, which laid the foundation for its move to PR from FPTP in 1996. Meanwhile, over 90 Labour MPs have backed the idea of a National Commission on PR.

Whatever the review mechanism, there is an important principle here: that there should be a truly impartial look at how to make our electoral system work better for voters.  

Like any new PM, Burnham will be instantly beset by numerous pressing and grave issues as he settles into Downing Street. Launching a commission need not distract from those priorities. It would establish an independent process while ministers get on with governing.

A manifesto commitment on electoral reform requires substantive policy development. A genuinely independent commission should be given time to conduct the work that would later inform that commitment, taking public and expert evidence, assessing the options and making recommendations against clear democratic principles. 

Time is of the essence for our democracy. We have a dysfunctional electoral system that is producing parliaments that look less and less like how people voted, at a time when trust in politics is at a record low. Inaction would leave our democracy on a dangerous trajectory. 

Burnham has long been one of the most passionate advocates for a politics at Westminster that better represents the whole country. In 2023, he argued: “I don’t believe all people in all places will be equally represented in Westminster until every vote matters.” 

Launching an independent commission in the first 100 days of his premiership to look at how to make Parliament properly reflect the way the country votes would be a crucial first step towards realising that vision.

Darren Hughes is Chief Executive of the Electoral Reform Society

Jonathan Reynolds – then business secretary, and who has returned to the role under Andy Burnham – lifts molten metal during a visit to the British Steel site in Scunthorpe, Lincolnshire, April 2025 (PA Images / Alamy)

5 min read28 min

That is why Andy Burnham is right to place reindustrialisation at the heart of his agenda. It is also why I’m part of Labour’s Reindustrialisation Research Group of MPs. Because reindustrialisation is not simply an economic strategy – it is a freedom agenda.

For too long, we have spoken about freedom almost exclusively in negative terms: freedom from regulation, freedom from taxes, freedom from government. Those debates have their place, but they overlook a deeper truth.

Freedom is not simply the absence of restraint. Freedom is the presence of opportunity. It is the freedom to earn a decent wage; to learn a skilled trade; to own a home, raise a family and build a future in the community that shaped you. Above all, it is the freedom to become everything you are capable of becoming.

That freedom has steadily been taken away from too many Red Wall communities. Across the North, the Midlands and Britain’s industrial heartlands, people did not lose ambition. They lost opportunity. They lost industries that had sustained families for generations, and they lost secure, skilled work. And with that went something far more valuable than a payslip: the confidence that if you worked hard, your children would live better lives than you had.

That was never simply an economic loss. It was a loss of freedom. Deindustrialisation did not just close factories – it hollowed out communities, weakened civic institutions and left too many towns dependent upon decisions made hundreds of miles away by people who neither understood their history nor shared their aspirations.

For decades, Britain has attempted to manage that decline. We have redistributed wealth rather than creating it. We have expanded welfare while shrinking productive capacity. We have concentrated investment in already successful places while asking everyone else to be patient. It has not worked.

The answer is not to manage decline more efficiently. It is to reverse it. That is the mission of reindustrialisation. The Reindustrialisation Research Group exists because Britain needs far more than another set of short-term economic interventions. We need a new political economy that makes more things, in more places, with more British workers. One that builds resilience against global shocks, creates good jobs close to where people live and restores agency to communities that have too often felt powerless.

This is not nostalgia but necessity. The world is becoming less globalised and more competitive. Nations are once again thinking seriously about energy security, manufacturing capacity, critical minerals and strategic supply chains. Britain cannot afford to watch from the sidelines while others rebuild their industrial strength, nor can Red Wall communities afford another generation of missed opportunities.

Reindustrialisation means producing more of our own energy, making more of our own steel, building more advanced manufacturing, and investing in defence, nuclear, engineering and new technologies. It means patriotic procurement that backs British workers, affordable energy that allows industry to compete and an active state willing to invest where markets alone will not.

Most importantly, it means spreading that investment fairly across every nation and region of the United Kingdom. Economic growth that benefits only London is not national renewal. It is geographical inequality with a larger GDP. The true measure of success is whether a young person growing up in Hartlepool, Stoke, Wrexham, Grimsby or Bolsover has the same freedom to build a successful life as someone growing up anywhere else in Britain.

That is why education matters. Vocational skills matter. Transport matters. Industrial policy matters. Every apprenticeship, skilled job and factory built expands freedom. Every community connected to opportunity expands freedom.

That is why I joined the Reindustrialisation Research Group. Its mission is not merely to scrutinise policy but to help shape a long-term national strategy capable of transforming Britain’s economy. One that matches the scale of the challenge with the scale of investment required, recognising that Parliament has a responsibility not simply to react to change but to help lead it.

The objective is straightforward: to build an economy that works everywhere, not just somewhere. Working-class communities are not asking for special treatment. They are asking for the chance to contribute again. They do not want dependency. They want dignity. They do not want permanent redistribution. They want productive work. They do not want managed decline. They want national renewal. And they do not simply want freedom from government.

They want the freedom that comes from opportunity: the freedom to work, to earn, to build, to innovate, to stay close to family, to own a home and to believe that hard work will once again be rewarded. That is the promise of reindustrialisation. Not simply stronger economic statistics, but stronger communities. Not simply higher growth, but wider opportunity. Not simply a wealthier Britain, but a freer one.

If we are serious about taking back our freedom, then we must once again become a nation that makes things, builds things and believes in the people who have always been at the heart of Britain’s success. For Red Wall Britain, freedom will not be won through slogans. It will be won through opportunity. And opportunity begins with reindustrialisation.

Jonathan Brash is Labour MP for Hartlepool and a founding member of the Reindustrialisation Research Group

Then, and now.

Scottish politics: where repeated catastrophic failure is just another way to succeed.

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Laurent Warlouzet looks at the evolution of European integration and the role the UK has played from within and outside. 

Britain has been at the core of the European integration process since its inception, despite frequent upheavals. In my recently published book, Liberty, Solidarity and Community: Capitalism and European Integration, I argue that there has always been a discrepancy between the official discourse of British leaders, who portrayed themselves as isolated champions of freedom battling continental Europeans, and the day-to-day reality of Britain’s constant engagement with Europe.

An examination of the British archives from Margaret Thatcher’s leadership (1979–1990), in particular, sheds light on how the Iron Lady sought to steer the single market programme in a free-market direction. She also supported greater cooperation in foreign policy and research and development, and she even lobbied Brussels to provide massive amounts of state aid for a limited number of favoured pet projects, from the Harland & Wolff shipyard to the Nissan plant in Sunderland. Obviously, she was later disappointed by what she perceived as excessive dirigisme emanating from Brussels.

Britain was highly influential in Brussels during its membership of the European Economic Community and later the European Union (1973-2020), notably through its powerful Commissioners, from Roy Jenkins to Leon Brittan and Neil Kinnock. Even after Brexit, once the disputes over the Covid-19 vaccines subsided, Britain has remained influential in Europe, largely thanks to its substantial involvement in supporting Ukraine. Even in trade, the attraction of the single market is so great (for the simple reason that, geographically speaking, Britain is still in Europe!) that it has proved difficult to conclude a comprehensive trade agreement with the United States. Such an agreement would probably require significant divergence from EU single market rules, causing major disruption to UK-EU trade in the process. For example, during talks about a putative US-UK trade agreement under the Premiership of Boris Johnson, the issue of the European Union‘s (in)famous ban of chlorinated chicken, which is permitted in the US, was raised.

Even before Thatcher, the UK had played an instrumental role in establishing the first European organisations: the Organisation for European Economic Cooperation (OEEC), which administered the Marshall Plan (1948), and the Council of Europe (1949). Although it initially refused to join the European Communities, it eventually became a member in 1973. Britain failed in its attempts to promote alternatives to the European Communities, such as the 17-country Free Trade Area proposed in 1956 or, failing that, the smaller seven-country European Free Trade Association (EFTA), established in 1960. Yet it remains to be seen whether Britain could revive a new kind of EFTA for the whole of Europe, now that Brussels is embarking on a wave of deregulation. The rise of far-right parties in Europe could hollow out the European Union from within by weakening its regulatory framework and federal judicial system, thereby reviving the model of a free-trade area as the organising principle of the European continent.

Britain is also still an “awkward partner” (an expression coined by a diplomat in 1980) for a European Union that seeks to pursue a more assertive trade and industrial policy. The book shows that Brexit has strengthened the European Union by enabling France to advance long-standing legislative proposals on industrial policy and protectionism that Britain had consistently opposed. Reintegrating Britain into the European Union, or even into some of its initiatives, such as European rearmament or proposals to establish a “European preference” for certain strategic products, would mean greater competition for EU firms. Should Britain be treated as a privileged partner or simply as a friendly neighbour?

Beyond the British case, the book advances two broader arguments. First, capitalism is not simply a contest between free-market advocates and supporters of welfare and environmental policies. There is also a third camp that favours protectionism and a more assertive foreign and defence policy. Accordingly, the governance of capitalism rests on three foundational principles: liberty (the free market), solidarity (social and environmental policies), and community (protectionism and assertive foreign and defence policies).

Second, in seeking to preserve peace while managing growing economic, social, and environmental interdependence, Europeans have chosen a distinctive path: European integration. This project has never been exclusively neoliberal. Rather, it has evolved through a combination of supranational ‘liberty capitalism’ national ‘community capitalism’ (industrial policy), and various forms of ‘solidarity capitalism’ (cohesion policy, the joint procurement and distribution of Covid-19 vaccines, environmental policy, and so forth). Drawing extensively on archival sources, the book also highlights the many alternatives considered by European leaders, including a free-trade area, economic planning, a carbon tax (as early as 1992), fiscal harmonisation, joint industrial projects, a common foreign policy, and a European army.

The book highlights some of the major questions for the EU, such as: is it able to cope with the return of power politics, or is it merely a regulated market? How does industrial policy need to shift in response to Trump’s policies? And how else might the European Union evolve to deal with the new world order?

Today, the central challenge is to develop European forms of ‘community capitalism’ – that is, a European approach to industrial policy and strategic protectionism. A major foreign policy challenge for the United Kingdom in the years ahead is whether the evolving European model is one which it wants to participate more deeply in.

By Laurent Warlouzet, Professor, Paris Sorbonne Université. For a longer summary of the book, see here, or the book is available in open-access here.