Andy Burnham offers Labour a refreshing new voice to reach lost voters – but with what message? | Rafael Behr

It will take more than blokeish affability to reach across the Brexit faultline that scars British politics

A ndy Burnham’s stint as health secretary in the final year of Gordon Brown’s government was not especially memorable, although one observation from a senior civil servant in the department at the time has stuck in my mind. Working for Burnham, I was told, felt like “revising for exams with a mate who might turn to you and say: ‘shall we sack this off for a bit and play football instead?’”

It was meant as a compliment, mostly. The secretary of state didn’t defer government business for kickabouts on Whitehall, he just had the vibe of someone who was tempted. That image confirms everything Burnham’s Labour supporters and critics already think about him.

Enthusiasts see serious purpose worn amiably. This, it is said, has been a winning combination in the Greater Manchester mayoralty. Transplanted to Downing Street, it might reconnect the government with audiences it has lost under Keir Starmer. Sceptics say Burnham’s congeniality comes with indecision; that the arc of his political career has been shaped by a preference for being liked over confronting hard choices. This trait can be compatible with municipal office but leads to paralysis and ruin in prime ministers.

The debate is premature given that there isn’t a vacancy in Downing Street. Burnham’s plan to create one, and then fill it, depends on him winning a tricky byelection in Makerfield . But, given the north-western battleground, and the Greater Manchester mayor’s popularity in the region, no other candidate would stand a better chance – or any chance – of keeping the constituency out of Reform UK’s hands.

The fact that the contest is competitive speaks volumes about Labour’s predicament. Makerfield was once a safe seat. Now there is no such thing. The era when power at Westminster was swapped between two dominant English parties according to a swing of voters in a predictable tranche of marginal seats is over. The electoral ground on which Tony Blair’s parliamentary majorities were built has been partitioned. Working-class bastions have been captured by Nigel Farage . Metropolitan centres are turning Green.

The 2024 landslide election win generated a momentary illusion of restored Labour supremacy. Voters were animated by urgency to remove the Tories and sufficiently unthreatened by the prospect of Starmer as prime minister to use his candidacy as the lever for regime change. Once that goal was achieved, there was no public reservoir of loyalty to an ill-defined project under charmless leadership.

Incumbent governments usually shed support midterm. They rely on wavering supporters who have been lodging protest votes in local ballots to come back to the fold in a general election. Something like that might yet be on the cards, but it looks as if something more profound and structural has changed in British politics.