Burnham becomes PM vowing 10-year plan for Britain

LONDON: New UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham on Monday promised to set out a 10-year-plan for Britain, to ease the cost of living crisis and outlined policy goals including an end to sleeping on the streets.

Accompanied by his wife Marie-France van Heel, Burnham earlier met King Charles III at Buckingham Palace to become the head of government after Keir Starmer resigned.

Burnham, 56, arrived at Downing Street to resounding applause from supporters and acknowledged he was the country’s seventh prime minister since the start of 2016.

Britain needed to show the world it could “regain stability”, he said, vowing to offer “a new political model” and “build a new economy”.

In foreign policy goals, he told broadcasters earlier his first calls would be to US President Donald Trump and Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky, to whom he will offer reassurance that “I will be with him 100 percent”.

In his brief speech outside Downing Street, the new Labour leader said he would “bring forward a new plan for Britain, a 10-year plan”, without giving specifics.

Naming short-term goals, he promised to “give people some breathing space now, some help with the cost of living.”

He also said his first instruction would be a pledge to “end rough sleeping”, a measure he attempted to implement as a regional mayor in northern England, although it was not fully successful.

Other announcements included a pledge to reindustrialise Britain through public procurement and to build more public housing.

‘Stronger, fairer’

Starmer departed Downing Street earlier, insisting his short time in office had made Britain a better place.

“I am confident that Britain is now stronger and fairer than it was two years ago,” Starmer told reporters in his farewell speech outside Downing Street.

“I go with good grace, I go with a smile, and I go proud of everything that we have achieved,” he added.

Burnham will face an in-tray overflowing with challenges with little time to make his mark with a nationwide election due in 2029.

In an interview with The Times published late Sunday, Burnham said he wanted to draw a line under a decade of political turmoil.

“What we’ve been doing hasn’t been working. That’s the way I see it,” he said.

“I am going to try and do things in a different way.”

The focus now turns to his senior cabinet appointments, with all eyes on who will replace Rachel Reeves as finance minister.

The former mayor of Greater Manchester, nicknamed the “King of the North”, has been parachuted in by the Labour Party, after Starmer resigned last month, with MPs viewing him as the party’s best chance of reining in Nigel Farage’s anti-immigration Reform UK party.

‘Bigger, bolder’

Among Burnham’s most urgent challenges will be a tepid economy, high government borrowing costs, a ballooning welfare bill and irregular migrants arriving in small boats that have fuelled support for Reform.

Unpredictable energy prices due to the US-Iran war and volatile relations with the United States under Trump also threaten to buffet his premiership.

Burnham told The Times he would take a “different approach to public spending, and to running the economy – more focused on early investment, early intervention, setting people up for success, and much less paying for failure.”

Starmer led Labour to a landslide election victory in July 2024 after 14 years of Conservative rule.

He announced that he would resign as prime minister and Labour Party leader in June after a string of scandals, missteps and policy U-turns blighted his leadership.

But Burnham, who only returned as a member of parliament four weeks ago, has little room to manoeuvre amid sluggish economic growth, high public debt and strict financial rules requiring him to balance government spending against tax revenue.

Burnham was an MP between 2001 and 2017, serving as a minister in the governments of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown.

He has since reinvented himself as a man of the people, melding a relaxed, folksy style with slick social media videos.

But Burnham’s swift “coronation” as Labour leader and now prime minister has raised questions on how he will achieve his aims.

EU chief Antonio Costa congratulated Burnham on taking up the job, and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz invited him to visit Berlin to mark “the deep bond between us”.