The small town of Makerfield on the outskirts of Greater Manchester – in the spotlight ahead of tomorrow’s by-election on June 18 – has been covered in election posters for weeks.
Among them, the turquoise one featuring the Reform UK symbol and the bright red background with a stylized portrait of Andy Burnham stand out, accompanied by the slogan “Vote Andy, for us”.
It is no coincidence that Burnham’s posters omit the name of his party. The Labour government and especially its leader are far from popular in the area.
The change promised by Starmer in 2024 has never materialized. The cost of living crisis, socioeconomic marginalization, and immigration were and remain real problems that the Makerfield community faces every day.
Left behind. That is how the local electorate feels: cut off from a Labour political class that, having returned to power, not only continues to promise a better future without delivering results, but seems to have forgotten the importance of its traditional territorial base in Northern England.
Andy Burnham has learned on the ground, as mayor of Greater Manchester, to use the opposite approach. That is why he is standing in Thursday’s election as a “rebel” against his own party’s establishment.
The Makerfield seat was strategically vacated to allow Burnham to enter parliament, trigger the process to choose a new leader, and take Starmer’s place. Voting for Andy, therefore, means voting to bring the voice of Makerfield, and the North, from the periphery to the center; but it also means getting rid of Starmer, while supporting a Labour candidate, providing a “local” and credible alternative to Reform UK.
The paradox of Makerfield is all here: a single by-election, in a single constituency, can decide the future of the British government, the Labour party, and perhaps the entire political system of the country.
Formally it is a by-election. Politically it is much more. It is the point where Starmer’s crisis, Burnham’s ambition, and Nigel Farage’s advance converge. Burnham is betting on returning to Westminster. In politics, personal ambition is not a sin; it is often the condition for existence. In fact, one should be wary of those who say they entered politics only because the country asked them to.
But the real question does not concern only Burnham. It concerns Labour. Can Burnham stop Reform UK? Can he pull the party out of the quagmire it fell into just months after a landslide electoral victory? Can he restore political meaning to a majority that seems to have worn out almost immediately?
Makerfield will say something decisive. If Burnham wins, the game inside Labour reopens. If Reform UK wins, a completely new phase of British politics begins. Farage knows this: that is why he already speaks like a prime minister, even to the international press.
This is no longer just a by-election. It is an early referendum on the future of the United Kingdom.
But who is Andy Burnham? What are the foundations of his popularity among the electorate? And why does his rise to Westminster scare the wing of the Labour party close to Starmer?
FROM THE NORTH TO LONDON, AND BACK
Before becoming one of the most recognizable critics of the “Westminster bubble,” Burnham was a fully internal product of London’s New Labour.
He began his career in the capital, quickly climbing the party ranks: first as special adviser to the Culture Minister in 1998, then in 2001 as MP for the Leigh constituency, in his home area, not far from Makerfield.
During the 16 years he sat in parliament, he ranged between the right and the moderate left, the so-called soft Left.
For this reason, the most critical commentators still label him as a careerist who does not hesitate to sacrifice ideological consistency to maximize his political success. In this, perhaps, there is some truth. Or perhaps, simply, during his years in London, Burnham internalized and became a prisoner of a mentality entirely internal to Westminster Labour.
During the governments of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, Burnham held important positions, from junior minister to chief secretary to the Treasury, to Culture Minister, and finally Health Minister.
These were years in which he did not shy away from New Labour’s discipline, even when it meant cuts to public spending and support for NHS reorganization processes that paved the way for increasingly advanced forms of privatization.
In 2010 he attempted his first leadership bid. But Ed Miliband won, and Burnham came fourth out of five candidates. In the following five years, he moved towards the left of the party, trying to gain support among the Labour base by mounting harsh criticisms precisely against cuts to the National Health Service.
At the same time, however, he abstained from voting on the Welfare reform, based on austerity, introduced by the then Conservative government. In 2015 he tried again to climb the party, but this time he was defeated by Jeremy Corbyn.
Despite the sting of defeat, Burnham entered Corbyn’s shadow cabinet only to completely change course a few years later.
In 2017 he was elected mayor of Greater Manchester – the first experiment after London of devolution on a large metropolitan scale in England.
And it is precisely by returning home, to Northern England, that Burnham managed to shake off the doctrine of ‘Westminsterism’ – the inability to look beyond the procedures, mechanisms, and power games of London – and reinvent himself again as an interpreter of politics rooted in territories, public services, and communities. This time convincingly.
TERRITORY BEFORE POLITICS
Many close to him recall how in the early days the “London Burnham” struggled to adapt to the workings of Greater Manchester, where the mayor chairs an executive formed by representatives of the 10 municipalities in the area.
But Burnham quickly got the measure and, above all, learned firsthand the importance and value of devolution: starting from the territory to build a direct and more effective relationship between local communities and political institutions, bringing politics closer to citizens and thus reconnecting citizens with politics. Place before politics. Putting the territory before party politics became Burnham’s mantra.
Burnham’s reinvention was completed before the eyes of the entire country in 2020, during the pandemic. Standing on the steps of the Manchester Library, in jeans and parka, the mayor of Greater Manchester performed a simple yet extraordinary act: he spoke directly to Prime Minister Boris Johnson opposing the harsh restrictions imposed by the government in the area, demanding for his region the funds to support local businesses that Downing Street was unwilling to grant.
And even though the Conservative government did not back down, Burnham’s words resonated with local communities. For the first time, a political leader openly defended Greater Manchester giving voice to the increasingly widespread perception that Westminster had become alien to the rest of the country. The next day, the scene was on the front pages of all local and national newspapers.
Slogans praising the North and its autonomy from the center began to spread on social media. As a sign of appreciation, the famous local artist Stanley Chow produced a stylized portrait of Andy Burnham, the same one now seen throughout the streets of Makerfield. And Burnham was nicknamed “King of the North,” a nickname that has stuck with him ever since.
Burnham thus became a leader of the North and for the North. But one who also knows how to network and build community relationships in the area he governs: with citizens and civil society, with entrepreneurs and other local politicians. It is from this experience that the Burnham brand was born, or, as he prefers to call it today, Manchesterism.
“MANCHESTERISM” (AND ITS CONTRADICTIONS)
Burnham’s Manchesterism is simultaneously a philosophy, a political style, and an economic development model inspired by the success of Greater Manchester.
It draws on a business-friendly socialism, but presented as an alternative to neoliberalism and the push for privatization and centralization of political power, as well as to the socioeconomic inequalities that accompany it.
It calls for politics in opposition to that of Westminster (and the Starmer government), aiming to create an alternative political culture from below, from territories and local communities.
Manchesterism is rooted in devolution, long-term planning, and what Burnham has called “good growth.”
In practice, it advocates the use of public ownership to govern the provision of essential goods (such as transport, housing, energy) to expand supply, reduce costs, and make them more accessible.
A model close to the so-called “foundational economy” theorized by the Foundational Economy Collective and economists like Karel Williams or Julie Froud, which Burnham has implemented in Manchester.
To date, the political success Burnham is most proud of is bringing the Greater Manchester bus network back under public control, introducing a £2 fare cap, and guaranteeing free access to users up to 18 years old.
A more efficient, extensive, and affordable public transport network means improving access to work, services, education, and vocational training, especially for residents of poorer areas. It means creating a connected metropolitan area where not only the center thrives. According to Burnham, this is precisely why Manchester has become the fastest-growing area in the UK.
Manchesterism demonstrates that an economic revival strategy capable of addressing regional inequalities between North and South can and must start from below: from the territory, local communities, and devolved institutions equipped with real powers and resources. It is thus both the assessment of Burnham’s experience as mayor and the cornerstone of the campaign with which he aims to reach Downing Street and restore citizens’ trust in politics.
Burnham therefore aims to transpose the Greater Manchester model to the national level: developing a more collaborative approach capable of freeing the country from the many crises that plague it, and restoring citizens’ trust in politics.
However, criticisms of this vision are not lacking. On one hand, his detractors argue that Burnham simply inherited, rather than created, the “Greater Manchester model,” whose roots lie in the collaborative model developed by local administrators in the decades before his rise to mayor.
Moreover, some contest the appeal to socialism and the foundational economy, pointing out that Greater Manchester was not reinvented thanks to bottom-up reindustrialization, but by shifting towards a knowledge economy also supported by an urban regeneration model driven by the real estate sector.
Manchester city center, now covered in skyscrapers, was reborn thanks to investments from international entrepreneurs, enriching more Chinese investors than local communities.
Also due to these contradictions, part of the political class defines Burnham’s Manchesterism as a vague, contradictory model that is difficult to extend to the rest of the country. More broadly, criticisms remain from those who have not forgotten Burnham’s past and see him as a “political weather vane” who moves according to his personal ambitions.
Andy Burnham smiles at these criticisms and relentlessly pursues his mission to bring Manchesterism to London.
A NATIONAL MANCHESTERISM?
It would certainly not be the first time the left has tried to reinvent itself starting from the territory. The history of early twentieth-century socialist municipalism, in cities like Lyon or Reggio Emilia, and then the great experiment of reformist communism in post-war Emilia-Romagna, remain a great political legacy.
London itself, through the Greater London Council in the years it tried to stand up to Thatcherism, looked to Bologna under Giuseppe Dozza and Renato Zangheri as a possible model: an urban government capable of combining participation, public services, a political culture of listening, and concrete policies.
These were experiments in territorial governance that were both pragmatic and radical: revolutionary not because they simply imagined an abstract alternative, but because they tried to build it in local institutions, neighborhoods, services, and daily relations with society.
It is a long tradition that continues to resurface whenever the left seeks a way out of the crisis of representation. Not by chance, just a few days ago, New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani recalled precisely this legacy when thanking Bologna for the Turrita d’Oro.
The reference to Bologna was not only symbolic: it evoked a season when local government was conceived as a political laboratory, a place for experimenting with advanced public policies and building a direct relationship between institutions and citizens.
It is not difficult to see some affinities between this tradition and some of the most well-known measures supported by Mamdani, such as the extension of free public transport on city buses.
Similarly, Burnham’s political success in Manchester has passed through very concrete policies on services and mobility. Choices that recall the insights of Bologna’s Mayor Zangheri in the 1970s on the role of public services as instruments of substantive equality, universal access to the city, and reconstruction of the bond between institutions and citizens.
It is precisely this ability to transform cities into spaces of political and social elaboration that continues to make that tradition relevant, well beyond Italian borders and far beyond the historical context in which it was born.
The hopes that Burnham’s Manchesterism is creating certainly go in that direction. But translating a territorial model into a national government project is another matter.
And this is Burnham’s real bet: not only to win a by-election, not only to stop Reform UK, but to force Labour to take territories, communities, and the concrete forms of social life seriously.
For a party and a political system that have long looked at the country from Westminster, that would already be a revolution. And perhaps that would be the real victory against Farage.
(Excerpt from the blog Notes by Stefano Feltri)
