Burnham's wake-up call to the right

Timing is everything. The Labour Party has waited nearly 20 years for the type of leader Andy Burnham revealed himself to be this week, someone who could bury Blairism and still look like a winner.

There have been several false steps on the way. Gordon Brown remained troublingly committed to economics. Ed Miliband and Jeremy Corbyn could not convince the country. Keir Starmer won but then turned on the left. Burnham was rejected (twice) for still seeming too New Labour. But the pattern has been consistent: members have been willing the way back to the land before the hated neoliberalism took hold.

Now Labour has the leader it wants and at an opportune moment. Burnham can, quite clearly, do the politics and is also determined to wind back the clock. A leader who believes in higher spending, more public intervention and stronger trade unions; a leader committed to undoing Thatcherism. And above all they have him when his political opponents are in chaos.

What his bravura party conference speech ought to have rammed home to opponents is that Burnham presents an existential threat to the right of British politics and to the economic liberalism it espouses. New Andy is unapologetically old Labour and he is taking the argument for municipal socialism to an enfeebled right. And the peril for them is larger than a mere election defeat.

Alongside Burnham's policy platform is a shrewd political strategy, calculated to rebuild the electoral coalition on the left and then drive through voting reform in the explicit belief it will keep the right out. He is planning this when, for the first time in modern politics, there is a clear split on the right which could gift him a return to Downing Street.

Consider his headline announcements of what he would do after the general election. He wants to reopen Brexit, tantalising pro-Europeans by not ruling out rejoining the EU. No doubt he is sincere, but this and his commitment to electoral reform are also calculated to tempt Lib Dems, Greens and others to lend Labour their votes.

Burnham has not committed to a specific voting system, so it is impossible to judge the impact of that intended reform. Anything close to a proportional model would mostly throw up European-style coalitions, potentially bringing left and right extremists into governing blocs.

He has spoken favourably of the supplementary vote system under which he was elected Manchester mayor. This gives voters a second preference and requires the winner to secure 50 per cent support; in many instances it will still benefit the front-running parties.

But we can be sure of two things, whatever version of electoral reform goes forward. It will not be designed to disadvantage the left and it will entrench multi-party politics, cementing the split on the right and permanently diminishing the Conservatives.

And layered on top is an economic and political argument which derides the market-based model. Perhaps this will prove mere rhetoric but the Burnham offer is to wind back the clock and, through electoral reform, to keep it there.

So his ascent should be a wake-up call to Conservatives -- and all who believe in a lower-tax, smaller-state model. Labour has found a leader with the personality to offer up a left agenda to voters desperate for dramatic change and receptive to a rose-tinted view of the world before Thatcher (which three-fifths of the country will not remember).

There are two problems for Burnham. The first is that even as Labour returns to the comfort zone of what it believes to be working-class politics, the party has rarely been more middle class. A recent study showed nearly two-thirds of its voters are now economically middle class and higher. Meanwhile, working-class and non-graduate voters are moving rightward, a trend crystallised by Brexit.

The bigger obstacle is that he is still presiding over high taxes, high debt and hard times. He admits that rising energy bills will lead to a "tough winter". Bond markets remain volatile and there is no sign of a serious plan for growth or a real roadmap to his new economy. While presenting himself as a change agent, Burnham has deferred his most transformational promises till the next election, which he claims is not soon. His gamble is that voters will keep faith till then.

But what this week has shown the right is that they now face a man who, unlike Starmer, may have the clarity of purpose and political skills to win. Burnham may still stumble. But his opponents cannot count on it.

Were they different, this would be a spur to Reform and the Tories to co-operate, but that seems highly unlikely. There is evidence it would alienate Conservative voters. With Reform a threat, left and centrist voters will bunch around Labour to stop them.

This is the reality for Kemi Badenoch as the Tory leader heads to her own party conference. Those who oppose big-state socialism have never been more in need of a strong Conservative Party and rarely further from having one. Badenoch must somehow lead an intellectual political revival with a badly discredited brand and convince voters her party is the viable alternative to Labour. This means broadening support rather than spurning liberal-minded voters.

Burnham is now offering the UK a real political fight about its future. If the right cannot regroup before he shifts the electoral rules, it will be a long road back.