Andy Burnham must show his hand on migration, welfare and the EU

After a phoney war leading up to the Budget, big decisions in the next few months will define his government

Good morning. I'm Chris Smyth, the FT's public policy editor, and I would usually spend the aftermath of the Budget poring over implementation plans after a showpiece designed to set the government's political direction.

This year, the usual process has been inverted. The Budget was a relatively quiet affair dominated by a raft of minor policies such as removing tariffs on gherkins. It is instead the next few months that will see Andy Burnham take the big decisions that will define his government.

Inside Politics is edited by Georgina Quach. Follow Chris on X and Georgina on Bluesky. Read the previous edition of the newsletter here. Please send gossip, thoughts and feedback to insidepolitics@ft.com

From vibes to hard choices

Burnham's first three months in office have been something of a phoney war, characterised not by any big shift in policy but by a change in political tone designed to introduce himself to voters as a prime minister who is on their side. The Budget was the culmination of this vibes-based approach: it aimed to show voters Burnham understands the pressures they are facing, and to show markets he understands the pressures he is facing.

Over the next few months, though, comes an unusual concentration of moments where Burnham will have to make decisions that will -- one way or another -- reveal the character of his government.

Chancellor John Healey's round of post-Budget interviews was dominated by confusion over whether, and when, he is going to cut welfare spending. As I report today, Alan Milburn's recommendations on reshaping the youth welfare system -- set to be published within the next two weeks -- will call on Burnham to find billions of pounds more to fund employment schemes.

Burnham will have to choose which path to tread between gilt investors demanding cuts on one side and Labour MPs demanding more support for young people on the other.

Immediately afterwards comes a long-awaited UK-EU summit. While the main agenda will be a long-planned deal on issues including food and drink exports and youth mobility, the big political choice will be the "options" on Britain's future relations with Brussels, which Burnham has said he will set out around the summit.

Is his flirtation with rejoining the EU simply a clever political device to unite progressive voters? Or does he think the economic prize on offer is worth spending his premiership re-fighting the most divisive battle of the past decade? A fundamental choice looms.

Then comes a devolution white paper in which Burnham must turn his favourite theme of pushing power out of Westminster into a practical plan to give control of tens of billions of pounds of taxpayers' money to a patchwork of untested regional mayors.

Finally, either in December or January, comes Burnham's 10-year plan. In it, he will have to explain what he means by ending "40 years of neoliberalism" and how he will do it without significantly higher spending. The most symbolic choice will be how he defines "public control" of utilities and whether this means nationalising Thames Water.

The decisions start today as home secretary Shabana Mahmood sets out how much Burnham is compromising on her plan to make it harder for migrants to claim permanent residency in Britain -- the indications are that a carve-out for care workers will be offered to MPs.

The next clean power auction this year and the decision over whether to approve the Rosebank oilfield will also test how far his administration has shifted towards prioritising cost over climate. Both decisions will show how he balances progressive priorities against the concerns of everyday Britons.

A third way?

All this makes for an unusually significant autumn. At the end of it, we will know a lot more about Burnham's government than we do after its first three months.

Yet even then, perhaps the biggest choice will still lie ahead. Next year's spending review will be the moment when Burnham decides whether to impose big cuts on public services to stick with his deficit reduction plan while increasing defence spending, or to increase taxes significantly instead.

Some in the Treasury are candid that the current strategy is to hope that something turns up to make this choice less acute. If it does not, something big has to give -- either Burnham's radical ambitions on reshaping the state or Labour's promises not to increase taxes on working people.

Or maybe there is a third option. Westminster talk of an early election refuses to die, despite repeated denials by Burnham. With polls suggesting Labour would lose its majority and the Conservatives itching to make any election a referendum on tax rises, many in Labour see the prospect as suicidal. Ultimately, though, perhaps this run of painful choices offers the most human explanation for why Burnham might go to the polls: not as a political strategy, but as displacement activity.

Now try this

Michelle de Kretser is one of the most talented writers at work today but does not get the recognition she deserves in Britain, perhaps because dazzling but deceptively simple prose is not always matched by her choice of subject matter. Take her most recent book, Theory & Practice: in other hands a genre-defying experimental work touching on race, graduate student life and French literary theory could be impenetrable, hectoring, insufferable, or some combination of all three. In de Kretser's, it is delicate, deeply humane and very funny. I shouldn't have waited. Anything she writes is worth reading.

Top stories today

* £450mn compromise | Britain will offer cheaper access for EU students to its universities at a potential cost of several hundred million pounds as talks between London and Brussels over future relations reach a crunch ahead of a summit on November 20.

* Young workers 'punished' | Trade union chiefs have warned John Healey against pursuing "a trade-off between jobs and wages" after he signalled that a Labour manifesto pledge to close the minimum wage gap for young people would be delayed until after the next election.

* 'Not for EU' labels scrapped | British food standards will align with the EU for the first time since Brexit under plans set to be ratified at a pivotal summit this month, the Sunday Times reports. Food products will no longer need to display warnings that they are "not for EU", which have been some of the most visual reminders of Brexit.