LONDON – Over to you, Andy Burnham.
The man nicknamed the “King of the North” will become the new British Prime Minister on Monday, the last in a series. revolving door of leaders which will attempt to end a decade of political turmoil and economic stagnation.
Burnham, 56, will be appointed without contest after the holder Prime Minister Keir Starmer has agreed to step down last month, following a series of electoral defeats, reversals and scandals.
Starmer and Burnham both come from the same centre-left Labor Party, and in the UK, ruling parties can change their leader – and therefore their prime minister – in the middle of an election cycle without anyone voting.
That said, Burnham has promised radical change when he takes office after a morning of royal formalities, even though he is already facing infighting over his cabinet choices.
The new leader has a busy inbox: how to solve Britain’s cost of living crisisrevive its ailing national health service and navigate bitter debates over immigration and Europe. He must also fend off the challenge from Reform UK, the far-right party led by Nigel Farage, ally of Donald Trump, leading the polls.
Burnham promised to “hand over power from the authorities to ordinary people” and “build a new politics – the country is crying out for it,” he said in a speech on Friday. “Let us have the courage to fix the big things that politics has neglected,” he added, promising to reverse the “wrong turns” that Britain began to take in the 1980s, when “political power was centralized and economic power privatized.”
Abroad, he will also have to manage his relationship with President Donald Trump.
At first, Trump dismissed Burnham as “the mayor of a city” and “extremely liberal,” but over the weekend the president praised (and perhaps overinterpreted) hints that Burnham might take a softer approach to Britain’s North Sea, where new oil and gas exploration licenses are currently suspended due to climate policies.
The change would take “the United Kingdom from a poverty-stricken disaster to one of the richest countries in the world,” Trump said on Truth Social.
While there has been little doubt about this outcome for weeks, Burnham’s path to the top job has been a winding one – from Westminster insider to mayor of Greater Manchester and, ultimately, a special election victory that sealed his return to Parliament and paved the way for the transfer of power now unfolding.
On Monday he will focus first on the pageantry of a now-familiar political transfer (Burnham being Britain’s seventh prime minister in a decade and fifth in four years).
He had already replaced Starmer as leader of the Labor Party. Then, early on Monday, Starmer delivered a farewell speech outside his official residence at No. 10 Downing St.
Starmer is then taken to Buckingham Palace, where he will present his resignation to King Charles III. After he leaves, Burnham will arrive at the palace and the king will ask him to form a government. This ceremony is known as “kissing hands”, although new leaders are not expected to do it these days.
Burnham will then return to Downing St. where he is expected to deliver a historic speech setting out his vision for the country.
This is a developing story. Please check again for updates.
