Business friendly ‘socialism’ – Andy Burnham style
In the beginning … there was a by-election in Makerfield.
No, that’s not correct.
In the beginning there was a problem for the Labour government that precipitated a by-election in Makerfield.
Despite having a massive parliamentary majority, Labour has spent its first years in office doing precisely what the British ruling class requires of it: intensifying the economic assault on working people, laying the groundwork for future wars, blaming migrants rather than capitalist profiteering for the collapse of public services, and continuing Britain’s support for the fascistic regime in Ukraine and the genocidal war being waged by Zionist Israel against the peoples of Palestine and Lebanon.
When he entered Downing Street, Keir Starmer was sold as the safe pair of hands. Instead he rapidly became a liability with his bland and uninspiring personality and being increasingly associated with attacks on workers, pensioners, the sick and the poor. Polling figures plummeted, Labour MPs grew nervous and the capitalist class began looking elsewhere for their new stooge.
The problem for Britain’s rulers is not one of strategy but of tactics
There is broad agreement across the establishment that Britain must be prepared for war, that public spending must be redirected towards rearmament and that Nato commitments must be met, envisaging that military spending should gradually increase to 5% of GDP from the present level of some 2%. Essentially Britain’s economic and social life must increasingly be placed on a war footing – the problem is getting buy-in from a disengaged and disillusioned population.
How do you continue impoverishing workers whilst demanding their support for ever-higher military spending? How do you funnel billions into the arms industry whilst claiming there is no money for housing, healthcare, education or welfare? How do you prepare a population for confrontation abroad whilst suppressing resistance and even the basic right of free speech at home? Such a task is difficult for any government but the existing Labour leadership appears increasingly incapable of carrying it out. And therein lies the basis of the Makerfield by-election.
Find a (relatively) charismatic Labour politician, with a homely, comfortable northern accent and a carefully cultivated image of authenticity. Present him as a regular bloke and make him sound relatable. Suggest he understands ordinary people’s problems and then position him as the answer to Labour’s and Britain’s woes.
Enter Andy Burnham
Burnham has had his sights on the top job for years. He stood in the 2015 leadership contest eventually won by Jeremy Corbyn. He became the first mayor of Greater Manchester in 2017 and has spent nearly a decade cultivating a national profile. The ambition has never been hidden but one obstacle remained. To become Labour leader he first needed to return to parliament.
Conveniently, Makerfield provided the opportunity. Josh Simons, an MP for only two years, resigned his safe Labour seat (undoubtedly under pressure), in a constituency Burnham has called home for more than two decades and Labour’s full electoral machine then swung into action.
Contemporary reports described one of the largest Labour by-election operations in recent years. Around 3,000 activists descended on Makerfield. MPs, cabinet ministers, councillors, trade union officials and party members arrived from across Britain. Resources poured in and Labour’s entire apparatus was mobilised. Sounds rather important, doesn’t it? (see Jessica Elgot, ‘Labour campaigners fear hordes of MPs may annoy public as Makerfield votes’, The Guardian, 18 June 2026).
The result was predictable. Burnham won and immediately found himself one step closer to a future leadership challenge. Across the liberal left there were audible sighs of relief. At last, they said, Labour has found its answer. Burnham possesses the elusive quality that Starmer lacks; he can reconnect Labour with working-class voters. He can halt the advance of Reform and Restore. He can bring hope back to politics. He can save Labour.
What these people fail to understand is that Britain’s problems are not caused by the wrong individual occupying Number 10. They are caused by the economic system that Number 10 exists to defend. Even Labour peer Lord O’Neill felt compelled to inject a note of realism into the euphoria. Before the by-election he warned that Britain’s economic problems would remain whoever became leader. Weak productivity, sluggish growth, pressure on public finances and the enormous costs associated with military expansion would not disappear simply because Andy Burnham moved into Downing Street.
Quite right. The real question is not whether Burnham replaces Starmer but if he would alter the trajectory of British imperialism. The answer of course is no. Indeed, Burnham has already indicated the opposite.
Whilst occasionally presenting himself as a critic of economic orthodoxy, he has quickly retreated whenever serious confrontation with the City or bond markets has been suggested. He has spoken favourably of special funding arrangements to support Britain’s military build-up and argues that defence spending should provide ‘maximum social return’ through apprenticeships, jobs and industrial policy. That may sound progressive to some but it most assuredly is not. It’s simply an attempt to make militarisation more politically palatable.
The message being delivered by the establishment is becoming increasingly explicit. Russia remains Britain’s principal enemy, military spending must rise, Nato commitments must be met, we the public must accept sacrifice and agree that the welfare state must shrink and the war machine must grow.
The numbers involved are staggering. Meeting Nato’s target of 3.5% of GDP (let alone the 5% to which the war hawks aspire) on defence would require tens of billions of pounds in additional spending every year. Those resources will not appear by magic. They will be taken from somewhere, and that somewhere is the working class. Workers will pay for war twice. First, they will pay through austerity: through deteriorating public services, collapsing infrastructure, attacks on benefits, stagnant wages and declining living standards as billions are diverted into the coffers of the military-industrial complex.
And then they will pay again. For every imperialist war ultimately demands blood as well as money. The same workers who funded the tanks, missiles and ammunition will be expected to fill the ranks, fight the battles and die in the conflicts those weapons were built to wage. First comes the sacrifice of living standards. Then comes the sacrifice of lives. Whether the prime minister is Starmer, Burnham, Farage or someone else is ultimately secondary. The direction of travel remains the same.
Indeed, one of the more revealing aspects of Burnham’s recent interventions has been his attempt to reconcile socialism with militarisation. He speaks of “aspirational socialism“. He speaks of opportunity and growth. Yet when discussing defence spending he frames it not as a burden but as an economic opportunity. This is apparently business-friendly socialism. Not socialism for workers. Socialism redefined as support for British industry, British competitiveness and British military strength. In other words, capitalist imperialism with a friendlier accent. It’s interesting that whenever the ruling class worries it’s losing the masses to socialist ideals, it introduces the language of socialism to fool us. Remember Hitler’s National Socialist German Workers Party? Workers must become more adept at judging movements and rhetoric by their class content, not their labels.
Several Labour supporters expressed to this writer cautious optimism about Burnham’s rise. They did not put it quite this way, but what they wanted was kinder capitalism. A Labour leader who would soften the rough edges of the system. Someone who would slow the march towards austerity and war. The tragedy is that they have travelled this road before. It’s a recurring theme.
Again and again workers are invited to place their faith in personalities rather than analyse the system itself. Again and again they are disappointed. And Burnham’s record gives little reason for confidence. He has shifted position repeatedly when political circumstances demanded it. He has supported immigration policies that expand detention and enforcement powers. He has retreated from previous positions on migrants’ access to benefits and housing. Only recently he refused to describe Israel’s destruction of Gaza as genocide. He joined Labour Friends of Israel during his previous leadership campaign where he lost to Jeremy Corbyn. He made a point during that campaign of saying that if he succeeded his first foreign visit would be to Israel (see Ben Kroll, ‘Where Does Andy Burnham, Frontrunner to Be Next British PM, Stand on Israel and Palestine?’, Ha’aretz, 26 June 2026). He has criticised Israel’s settlement policy but is even more critical of the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement that he describes as “spiteful“.
None of this suggests a politician preparing to challenge imperialism. Quite the opposite. The recent ratcheting up of the first phase of warfare — the propaganda phase — is now well underway. A new narrative is being constructed to the effect that the Russians are coming for us. Britain must rearm! Sacrifices must be made! Defence spending must rise! and public expectations must fall. The purpose of the Burnham phenomenon is not to challenge that process but to enable it to continue, despite the growth of popular dissent – and dissent itself must be punished.
A new ringmaster is being prepared for the circus.
Burnham’s task will be to persuade workers that their sacrifices are necessary, their declining living standards unavoidable and the diversion into the military-industrial complex of what remains of public finances (i.e., the proceeds of taxation) after the financial bourgeoisie has leveraged its massive wealth to direct an ever larger proportion of the wealth produced by the working class into its burgeoning treasure chests. While the Elon Musks of this world clock up their billions, the governments of even imperialist countries are left short of the money needed to fund public services. Therefore every government borrows – and pays interest to the financial oligarchy on what it borrows, and even on the interest payable on what it has borrowed. That interest is paid from the sweat on the brows of workers who become progressively poorer as a result. Does anyone seriously expect Andy Burnham to change this? The only thing different about Andy Burnham is the packaging. The northern accent, the approachable manner and the carefully cultivated image of authenticity do not alter the substance beneath. Like Starmer before him, he seeks office within a political system whose overriding purpose is the defence of British capitalism, the international financial oligarchy and British imperialism.
Nearly a century ago, on the eve of the 1929 General Election, the Communist Party of Great Britain summed up the principle perfectly:
“No party can serve two masters. No party can serve the nation so long as the nation is divided into two warring classes … No party can serve the robbers and the robbed.“
The long-running masquerade of social democracy is reaching its inevitable conclusion. With each new ‘saviour’, each fresh-faced leader and each promise that this time Labour will be different, more workers discover the same uncomfortable truth: all roads within capitalism lead back to the interests of the ruling class, the robber barons of finance capital in the City of London and their country estates.
Burnham’s role is not to change direction but to persuade us to continue down the same road with a smile on our faces. After Burnham there is nowhere left to go. The promises have been made, the masks have slipped and the alternatives within the system have been exhausted. Ahead lies only intensified austerity, militarisation, war and repression in defence of a dying imperial order.
The choice before the working class is stark and unavoidable:
Socialism or barbarism with a Burnham veneer!