Andy Burnham elected Leader of the Labour Party
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Andy Burnham, MP for Makerfield, has today (Friday 17 July) been
elected Leader of the Labour Party. Burnham received the support of
379 Labour MPs and 23 affiliate organisations. This afternoon, at
Labour's Special Conference at the Trades Union Congress in London,
the new Labour Leader was officially announced by Shabana Mahmood
MP, Chair of Labour's ruling body, the National Executive
Committee. "Thank you so much friends. What a moment. And what
backing you've...Request free trial
Andy Burnham, MP for Makerfield, has today (Friday 17 July) been elected Leader of the Labour Party. Burnham received the support of 379 Labour MPs and 23 affiliate organisations. This afternoon, at Labour's Special Conference at the Trades Union Congress in London, the new Labour Leader was officially announced by Shabana Mahmood MP, Chair of Labour's ruling body, the National Executive Committee. "Thank you so much friends. What a moment. And what backing you've given me. All our affiliated trade unions. All our socialist societies. 379 of our MPs. And I don't need to say commiserations to Catherine West because she backed me too. Thanks Catherine! All of them heard the call from the people of Makerfield, on behalf of forgotten places everywhere up and down this country, for a return of the Labour they once knew. And now we answer that call. We will be that version of Labour again. We are united today, as Hollie said, as Lucy said, as Shabana said, and thank you so much for your words. We are united and we put the power that comes from that unity at the service of people and places who have been waiting too long for politics to let them hope again. That's what we are going to do everybody. We are going to give them hope back. This is a proud moment you have given me and my family today - and an emotional one. But it is one for which I am ready. I am ready. Ready to lead and to build on the foundation laid by one person more than any other. Under Keir Starmer's leadership, we went from our worst defeat to one of the best victories in our history. Keir put Labour back in a position to change people's lives and that is what we have been doing these last two years. New rights for workers and for renters. NHS waiting lists falling for the first time in years in fact since I was Health Secretary I think, so well done Wes. Rail back under public control. Britain's reputation rebuilt on the world stage. And as Lucy said, just this week, the biggest rebalancing of the scales of justice this country has ever seen. Today, we thank Keir for his service to our Party and to our country. 10 years ago, he and I worked together, drawing up the original Hillsborough Law in my office in the aftermath of the second Hillsborough inquest. And I drew on all of his legal expertise when I presented that Bill to Parliament. To be in Parliament on Tuesday when Keir delivered on his promise to the Hillsborough families and all of the other campaigners who were part of the Hillsborough Law Now campaign, a promise to end the cover-up culture in this country, to pass power from the authorities to ordinary people and to prevent anyone in future going through what the Hillsborough families did it felt to me like life coming full circle. My journey to this stage today began in earnest at Anfield in April 2009. The Kop made me confront the fact that this country does not work for working class communities like the city of my birth. In fact, it's worse. It turned its back on them. Political power was used viciously against them to protect vested interests. Economic power cruelly stripped with the deindustrialisation of the 1980s, as it was against so many places up and down the land. And let us never forget: these are the very same places that built this Labour movement, this Trade Union movement where we are today. Those are the places but they were the places that were done down. This Labour movement, the Trade Union movement, was forged in the steel works and iron works of Sheffield, Scunthorpe, Port Talbot and Teesside. In the coalfields of South Wales, Central Scotland, Nottinghamshire, Derbyshire, Yorkshire and Lancashire. In the mills across the Pennines, west and east. In the shipyards on the Clyde and the Tyne. And in the dockyards of Liverpool and here in London. The people of these proud places made Labour. But we have to ask ourselves, just as I had to ask myself at Anfield that day: have we been good enough for them? Change starts with honesty. We must recognise that this generation of politicians - myself included have failed to challenge a political culture and an economic model that simply doesn't work well enough for ordinary people. Four decades of the neoliberalism that began in the 1980s have not been kind to the places that built our Party, nor to the communities across the UK in rural and coastal areas. So we pledge today to them to be better. And as I accept the honour of leading this Party forward, I will tell you about five things I will do to make us so. To make us better. First, I will work relentlessly to build a culture of one Labour team because change starts with us. We won't beat Britain's new Right if we are consumed by infighting and pulling in different directions. That is, and always has been, an indulgence that falls heaviest on the people who need Labour most. Fighting to eradicate it, and the insidious briefing culture that goes along with it, will characterise my leadership. In future, when a Burnhamite walks into a bar, as many Burnhamites are known do in future when a Burnhamite walks into a bar, I want the barman to say: Great to see you - we don't like factional politics in here. Now you might know, and your reaction suggests so, there's a different version of that joke, told by people who put internal politics before anything else. But here's the truth: their factionalism has bedevilled us. Today we move beyond it. I have supported all our Labour leaders in my lifetime because I believe a united Labour Party and Labour movement is the best hope for our country and I know you believe that too, as do our members up and down the land. And I will lead this Party in that spirit. Not seeking to suspend or punish members who have principled views that may be different from mine. But building unity by respecting all shades of opinion. And contrary to what you may keep on reading, I haven't made any decisions yet about who will be in that top team. But I will soon, and when I have, you will see it reflects all parts of our party, all communities. And it will reflect your own place within this great party of ours. A stonger, more united Labour Party lifting up a stronger and more united Britain. And this brings me to my second change. I will work to build a new politics. The country is crying out for it. We might enjoy the point scoring against others. The public don't. How can politicians point fingers when living standards are falling and politics as a whole isn't working for them? It infuriates them and makes them switch off. In Makerfield, I decided to make a break with this. I said we hadn't been good enough. I told people what I would do to fix it. You know what? People started to listen again. They gave us a fair hearing as the Great British public always do and then another chance. But let's be honest everybody. This is a last chance to change and we must take it together, united together. Tell people what we will do, rather than always going on about others. As we do more of that, let's see if we can get the ear of the country as well, not just Makerfield. Let's take a problem-solving rather than point-scoring approach. Let's have the courage to fix the big things that politics has neglected like social care and have the conviction to go out there together and argue for our plans. And let's have the self-confidence to find common ground with other parties where we can. By seeking more consensus, we may just find the change we make is more lasting. We may find our political discourse in this country becomes that little bit less toxic. And we should be working to achieve that too. And the turbulence of the last decade may not quite feel as so inevitable as it does today. My third change is our political direction. Yes, we will work with other parties where we can but doing so from the clarity of knowing exactly where we stand. As your leader, I will set a direction that is distinctively Labour. We won't try to out-Green the Greens or out-Reform Reform. Or doing what we've done in the past of wearing too many Tory clothes. Let me tell you - I'm quite happy that Kemi doesn't approve of my wardrobe choices because I'm not keen on theirs either! From here, we do it differently. We win by being us. Boldly, confidently, authentically us - Labour. That's how we win. I want people to understand the thinking behind the political direction I set so people can see the decisions we take and the reasons why. I am clear: Britain took a series of wrong-turns in the 1980s. Political power was centralised and economic power was privatised. The country surrendered control of the essentials housing, water, energy, transport and left people exposed to higher costs. That, in turn, led to the concentration of more wealth and power in the hands of fewer people and fewer places. Large parts of Britain were deindustrialised without the power to set new ambitions for themselves. Proud British towns now a shadow of what they once were and high streets in decline, so common up and down the country. Slowly at times imperceptibly over four decades political and economic power draining their way out of our communities in every region and nation of the UK. If local places don't control something as basic as a bus service, how can they connect people to opportunity and turn things around? If the sell-off of council homes leaves the country chasing rents in the private-rented sector through the benefits system and paying for temporary accommodation for thousands of families as they have to do here in London and elsewhere across the country, how then we will find the money to invest in prevention and improve people's lives? The truth is we can't. And if we have don't have sufficient public control over the cost of the essentials, how can we have control over inflation, public spending and the rest of the economy? The Right used the phrase take back control but they are the ones who gave it away in the first place. If we want an economy and a country that works for all people and places - which to me should always be at the very core of Labourism - then it requires a new path to the one we've been on for the last 40 years. The Government I lead will confidently lay that path out starting next week and that is why this change today is the most significant change moment in our politics for 40 years. It will take us to a country where life is more affordable and all people and places are lifted from where they are now. And Conference, this is my fourth commitment to you. I mean it when I say all places. I will be a Leader for the North, the South, the East and the West. For Scotland, Wales and for Northern Ireland. Yes the North of England has given me so much everything, in fact. And in return I have sought to give it the strongest voice I could. That was my job. But now I do the same for everywhere. Because I see the same challenges everywhere I look - the same challenges can be found in the South West as the North West, or in East Anglia as the North East. And this is the moment to speak for all parts of the country and unite people in a common cause. I love every part of this country. I love all the different accents, all of the different traditions, some of the football clubs. But no, I love every part of it. But I also know they can be more than they are. And that's what drives me in politics, the feeling that they should be more than they are. The feeling that kids shouldn't have to leave those places, those proud places, to get on in life. We should make them more than they are, help them take power to be more than they are. And this brings me to my fifth and final promise. We will take power back from Westminster and Whitehall and give it to the place where you live. More power over life's essentials so you can make them work better and more affordable for people - just as my good friend Steve Rotheram is doing today. As we are here meeting at the TUC in London, he is chairing a meeting of the Liverpool City Region Combined Authority and he is presenting to that meeting a plan to put the entire Merseyrail network back in public ownership by 2028. A plan to cut fares, make trains run on time, and a railway run in the interests of passengers not sareholders. We want to give your area more power to build the council and social homes that you desperately need for those families I was talking about a moment ago. More power to improve your high street, backing local businesses, such as the pubs and the shops that bring them to life. And make no mistake everybody, I will be a pro business leader of the Labour Party as I was a pro business Mayor of Greater Manchester. We turned places round together. And that is the way we ran in Manchester and will take to the whole country. And as part of that, more power to reindustrialise and to build an education system based on parity between academic and technical education to give every young person growing up in different parts of the country a path in life to university or to a work placement, to an apprenticeship, and into a good job. Hope for every young person is what we are going to be about. And this is it. Add all of that together. A plan to give people more power to bring back the hope we have all been missing too much and people are looking for us to deliver and we will. So everybody, you are here and you are sharing this moment with me. Thank you so much for being with me. I've had a long journey through politics to get to this moment as you all know, because so many of you in here and so many others watching this on television know what they did to help me along my way and knock me into shape as they needed to do. I want to, if I may, just single out three. I was his Parliamentary Private Secretary in my first experience of the frontbench but he has been the truest mentor to me in the decades since, and it is just wonderful to be with you Lord Blunkett on this special day. I would say he taught me everything I know but no, he didn't. Certainly not about football! But it is wonderful to have you with me in this moment, David. Can I also say to Dame Margaret Beckett, you were a wonderful friend to me throughout my time in Cabinet. You were always there for me to give me that nudge that I needed. And similarly, as with David, I am so proud and honoured that you are with us today. And sitting next to Margaret for those of you who want somebody to blame, he is the man you can hold to account. He is the man that fired up a young Andy Burnham in the North West of England in the mid-1980s with rhetoric of the kind that remains unmatched I would say in modern politics. It has always been something that I treasure to get a message from him with his advice and the care and the thought that he puts into those messages. They mean everything to me. I would not be standing here, I would not have joined this great party of ours in 1985 had it not been for the legend that is Neil Kinnock. It is absolutely brilliant to have you with us today. So many of you here who I can't name. So many watching have helped me get here. I haven't done it alone. I haven't got everything right and I'm sorry where I've fallen short. But I have always given it my all and I always will. Truly, I have given this party everything I've had but now it has done the same for me. I have listened and learned as I have gone along, you'll be pleased to know and hopefully got better as a result. You can be sure of this: I know what I believe after 25 years as an elected Labour representative. And I know what I want to do, working with you all. I have a plan. And what I also want you to know is that I won't change. I have a style, it's my style. I will always stay close to the ground, close to the people, hopefully still with my season ticket when the new season starts. In Cardiff, on Tuesday, it was brilliant to just meet and chat to people as they came up to speak. I will always stay the same. Because I draw my strength from people. I hear things, pick up straws in the wind. As I was going about Manchester in my job as Mayor and I say to Kevin Lee, who is here today and I want to thank Kevin who has been such a staunch supporter and friend for me on this journey I would bring a little idea from Greggs or the pub or wherever and he would say, well this is hardly from a think tank what am I meant to do with this?'. But that is how we did it. Just to be close and listen. And that's why I will do. I will be out and about in August in all parts of the UK, definitely in the South and I am off to Gravesend later to show I am for the South too. That's the way that I have always done it and it made me really proud recently you might call it faint praise but I took it as very serious praise - someone said recently: Andy's alright, he's FOR US. I was so proud of that that I made it my slogan in Makerfield. I am FOR US. For all of us. And I want people to say once again that Labour are FOR US. I want that just to fall off people's tongues. And we can do it. We can be that Party. The Party that puts more power in people's hands, drives good growth in every postcode and puts hope in every heart. That gets the country pulling together again and moves beyond the divisions of recent years. All people and all places, public and private sectors, in a new sense of unity and common cause. That's my mission as your new Leader. To bring back hope. I believe in all of you and I am confident we can do it. Thank you very much." Ends Notes: Affiliate nominations:
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