After going through six prime ministers in the last ten years, the not-so United Kingdom is likely to soon notch up its seventh.
The all but anointed Andy Burnham, until very recently the mayor of Manchester, was before that an MP who served under various Labour leaders, in and out of government, and is now heading for 10 Downing Street after emphatically winning the Makerfield by-election.
With overwhelming support from his colleagues, he’s set to replace the unpopular Sir Keir Starmer as Labour leader and prime minister. So will anything change? Burnham is more personable, younger, sportier and better connected to ordinary working people, particularly in the north of England, but in terms of policy the differences are fairly marginal.
Along with education, he talks a lot about ‘devolution’, which seems to mean decentralising state power to the regions and local government. While he can’t undo the Brexit mess, or fix the British media’s antipathy to all things Labour, Burnham does appear to have a genuine interest in collaboration, even with traditional enemies, to improve the living standards of ordinary people.
As he put it in a recent speech, ‘the country spends too much time arguing and not enough time doing.’ He’s a fan of reindustrialisation, science and public housing.
Although he describes himself as a socialist, Burnham is no Mamdani, and appears to have little interest in challenging the fundamental inequities associated with late stage capitalism.
This is ‘business-friendly socialism’, if there is such a thing.
What about the rest of the world?
Without mentioning Donald Trump by name, Andy Burnham recently said, ‘The path we’re on, if we are not careful, is a path towards the politics of the United States of America – a polarised, poisonous politics where people in communities don’t work together any more.’
Previously one of his party’s Friends of Israel, Burnham has since apologised for Labour’s initial pro-Israel stance on the war in Gaza, and called for Palestinian statehood. He’s been highly critical of the United States war on Iran, and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
His views on AUKUS, or allies such as Australia, remain a mystery, but Anthony Albanese would no doubt see the mild-mannered Burnham as a much better option than Reform’s Nigel Farage, who has been polling until recently as the most likely next UK prime minister, following the collapse of the Conservative Party.
One of the architects of the misinformation campaign that led to Brexit, Farage has proven himself a master of the standard populist right strategy of destabilising and damaging his own country, with racism as the centrepiece, then profiting from the chaos that follows. With the help of massive private donations, his party has gone from being a fringe curiosity just three years ago to being on the doorstep of government, on the back of a series of council wins.
All was going swimmingly until Farage came under investigation for failing to declare a £5 million gift from a crytocurrency investor, along with receiving financial support from another man convicted of wire fraud in the USA. Rather than facing the music, Farage has resigned, triggering a by-election in his seat of Clacton, a coastal town in Essex.
Vote 1 Count Binface
In the absence of any organised local campaign against Nigel Farage from the major parties, progressive political activists have stepped into the breach. A comedy writer who dresses up as an alien with a bin on his head, Count Binface, is standing against Farage, and may have a real chance of unseating him.
The activist group Led by Donkeys are also driving a video billboard around Clacton, in which a local woman talks about the twelve other highly paid jobs which Nigel Farage does while neglecting his own constituents, including advising multimillionaires how to avoid paying tax, speaking to American extreme faith groups and being a regular commentator on Sky News Australia.
The Australian connection doesn’t stop there – the line between Mara-a-Lago regulars Pauline Hanson and Nigel Farage is as clear as that between Farage and Trump.
Australia’s parliament is currently on one of its interminable breaks, which has freed up Barnaby Joyce and Pauline Hanson to wing their way to a sweltering UK, together with One Nation brains trust James Ashby, where they will join Farage in attending the British Conservative Political Action Conference, organised by the woman best known for lasting less time than a lettuce in the job of British prime minister, Liz Truss.
Tickets are priced from £100 to £10,000, depending on who you want to rub jackboots with. Headliners include the American influencer Jack Posobiec, known for his support of the fabricated Pizzagate conspiracy theory and for saying things like, ‘Welcome to the end of democracy – we are here to overthrow it completely.’
Not to be outdone, Pauline Hanson has set up her appearance at CPAC by recording a podcast with far-right British activist Tommy Robinson, one of the influencers of Australia’s own Brenton Tarrant, now in prison in New Zealand for mass murder.
In a fractured and wounded Britain, has Andy Burnham got what it takes to stop a divisive, billionaire-backed onslaught?
Although Farage and others have called for elections to be brought forward when Burnham is installed as PM, the next UK general election is not due to be held until 2029. Australia’s own democracy test will be at least a year earlier.
Originally from Canberra, David Lowe is an award-winning filmmaker, writer and photographer with particular interests in the environment and politics. He’s known for his campaigning work with Cloudcatcher Media.
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