The Risks of the By-Election

The New States man . Andy Burnham is running in a by-election in Makerfield, which is likely to be held on the 18th of June, to return to Parliament as an MP. If you win, he'll be the front runner in a contest to replace Keir Starmer as Prime Minister. However, Nigel Farage's reform is already taking the fight to burn him for the seat in Wigan, Greater Manchester, having won 50% of the vote in the Makerfield constituency wards versus Labour's 23% during the local elections. It will be a crucial contest. A Burnham victory could prove he can beat reform. A reform victory is a huge scalp and its campaign to defeat Labour. I'm Anush Shakellion, and this is the Politics Show from the New Statesman. I'm joined by our editor-in-chief, Tom McTague. Hi, Tom. Today we're going to focus on Andy Burnham's personal brand of politics and also his programme , what is often referred to as Manchesterism and how he could sort of graft that onto his country. He gave you his plan for Britain back in September, didn't he, when you did a big profile of him? And actually, uh you and Will Lloyd, our deputy editor, had a long conversation about that that uh profile back then. So do go and dig out the episode, anyone who didn't listen to it at the time, because it gives you a really good idea of what Andy Burnham believes. We'll put it in the show notes. But first, let's catch up on the updates over the weekend. So this by-election has been called. It's existing MP Josh S Josh Simons, a new MP, not ideologically aligned to Andy Burnham, decided to stand down from his seat um and the NEC, the body, Labour's ruling body that didn't allow Burnham to run in the Gorton and Denton by election, as our listeners will remember, has allowed Burnham to go for this one. So what was going on there? I think a lot of MPs are are asking that right now and um a lot of them are are mistrustful of him or distrustful of him about his uh motiv ations for that. I think to give listeners a sort of sense of why it's because Josh Simons is seen to come from the right of the party. Yeah. Um he is seen uh as a member of the kind of labour together faction. This is this think tank that was really important in the rise of Keir Starmer. It was seen as, you know, the eyes and ears and the intellect behind Keir Starmer and Morgan McSweeney's takeover of the party. And originally Labour Together was sort of as it says on the name on the tin, that it was an attempt to bring the party back together, the various factions , um, after the Jeremy Corbyn's leadership. So the idea was, you know, Corbyn represented the the hard left faction within the party and that to take back control from that faction, the soft left and the brownites and the blairites and the right, the you know, the old right and the blue Labour and all of these different groups that we the that we hear a lot about, they had to sort of put their differences aside, come back together, labour together, and take control of the party. And that was a a key moment uh in the in the kind of rights telling of the story of Labour the Labour Party's resurrection. And then what a lot of the soft left of the Labour Party, you kind of uh the the the uh part of the party represented by Lisa Nandy and Ed Miliband and Lucy Powell and now Andy Burnham, there is a sense that um Morgan McSweeney and Keir Star mer moved the goalposts, they then took control of the Labour Party for a faction on the right of the party, and they didn't bring the party back together. And Josh Symonds was held up as a kind of exemplar of this faction alism. And so the great surprise is that Josh Symonds, a member of this wing of the party, stood down to clear the way for Andy Burnham from the soft left of the party. And that's why it's kind of caused uh confusion among some. But I think one way to understand it is a is a way of the the different wings of the party coming back together, or s some bits at least. But there is still this kind of m distrust because West Streeting is still out there representing that right of the party as well. Yeah, there's something poetic about it, isn't there? When the former leader of Labour Together, Josh Sim ons deciding to sacrifice his seat in favour of Andy Burnham running against West Street. It's all getting quite confusing. Yes. candidate, uh I think he's he's about to be uh chosen as the candidate, uh standing against effectively the Labour Prime Minister. Yeah, it's bizarre. It's gonna be such an interesting by election and we'll get onto it, but to have a Labour candidate basically saying I'm your chance of replacing the current Labour establishment is quite a strange position to come from. Where Streeting has announced that he will run in a leadership contest when it happens, having resigned as health secretary, and he's been saying over the weekend that Britain's future lies one day back in the European Union. And we knew these were his instincts, didn't we? As they are many Labour MP's instincts. But he broke the party line, didn't he, and said that the UK should join a customs union with the EU and was ticked off for that back when he was in the cabin et. Um some are accusing him, particularly from the Andy Burnham camp of, you know, causing mischief because it's difficult for Burnham to to to follow the same line, given he's also said he wants to see the the UK to rejoin the European Union in his lifetime, but he's about to be running in a leave voting seat. Yeah, there's so much going on here. There's so many sort of overlapping paradoxes within this within this entire contest. But I think y you you put it well that uh there is plenty of skepticism about the timing of when Streeting's announcement. Uh and the idea that he's causing mischief. I mean there's a there's a fair amount of mischief going on. Already we have a Prime Minister with a hundred and eighty seat majority who looks like he no longer commands a majority in the House of Commons or in his cabinet and is facing a revolt that is now open uh in the face of Andy Burnham and West Streeting has resigned and is effectively saying, Well hang on, I want to run for the leadership. And he wants the leadership election to start now, effectively. He doesn't want to wait until Andy Burnham comes in and has a free run. So it is clearly within uh in West reating's interest that the challenge begins and he starts to so uh sow some seeds. And the one obvious advantage he has over Burnham is on this question of Europe, uh, because the overwhelming majority of Labour members think Brexit was a catastrophic mistake and that Britain should go back into the European Union. And so you I think you were always going to get into this position in any Labour leadership contest where you were going to have a raising of the bids from the prospective leaders. That is exactly what happened in the Tory leadership where you had the the fight between Liz Truss and uh Rishi Sunak. Yeah. And you ended up with the with Liz Truss obviously the candidate that was closer to the membership. Now I think this is uh this is the the the the reality that where Streeting finds himself in is that he is not very popular. Andy Burnham is very popular with the members, but he does have one dividing line which can at least cause Burnham some trouble and that's on this question of Europe. Yeah, and it is causing Burnham trouble, isn't it? Because already he seems to be having to fight two elections at once. One is this by election where he's largely having to win over voters who are sceptical about Europe, sceptical about immigration, those kind of labour to reform switches in a seat like that, while also still having to appeal to the Labour selectorate on all of these things where, you know, they in many cases feel the opposite to that electorate. So it's quite hard for him already and it and the campaign's not even starting Yeah, but I I think this is partly the the challenge for Bernard, but also the what he holds out as the hope. Labour Party is facing an existential challenge because it is being squeezed on all sides. During that those local elections, uh there was a feeling or well it's not just a feeling, it's a reality that Labour was losing everywhere all at once. It was losing to the Greens, it was losing uh to reform at the same time, it was losing it was just losing i in every war basically that it was standing in, apart from I think a few in in Labour, it was uh it was losing . And the the reality of that situation is that it is an existential crisis. It's not just a sort of performatively existential crisis. It in the system that we have, the Labour Party could just be annihilated under s uh you know if it wins whatever it was, sixteen percent of the vote or eighteen percent of the vote. And Andy Burnham holds out this hope, which I think is why he's so attractive to Labour MPs and Labour members, that he can almost make the conundrum go away just through the sheer force of his uh personal ity, of his persona, of what he represents in Manchester that he can win back green voters with a a more authentically left wing economic platform. But also he is and he talked to he talked to me for the for this profile and has done since about things like proportional representation about Europe. He talks about it in here. The sense that he can uh he can offer something on that side of the equation. At the same time speaking to Labour's lost base in the Northwest, those people that uh abandoned the party during the local elections, that he that he has something to say to them. So I was just I was going back through it and one one of the th things I I thought was interesting was he talks about not leaving the European Convention on Human Rights but uses quite emotive language about the atrocious and dangerous um home office asylum policy. And I thought that's the kind of language which obviously could appeal in large parts of the country. Uh and he's doing so without um aping reform policies. He's really in a sense opposing kind of centralized home office distribu tion scheme, uh, without local consent. That's that the that's the essence of his argument. But I think that is what's under the microscope right now. Like can he actually hold those two things together? Can you appeal to Labour's deserting base at the same time as uh appealing to the Greens. And what is Labour's base? You know, I was just uh talking to somebody for um a five live program and they were saying that this basically it's impossible to hold Labor's base together because you have uh they were being quite dismissive of Labor's base. They were sort of saying, oh it's just woke people in hackney plus working class people in the Northwest. And I'm just not sure that that is true. Like I think Labour's base is as coherent as any other party's base . There are lots of th Labour's always had to combine uh Fabian And it's always managed to bring the two together. It's always had middle class and working class people in the same party. In fact, that's been its strength and it's been able to do so. And I think if you go to lots of places, uh northern constituencies that are just dismissed as uh you know part of the red wall and their kind of cloth cap whippet w you know, owning, you know, working class racists or whatever people think. And if you can't if you don't offer them that kind of policies, they're not going to vote for you. Well actually, isn't Labour's base also teachers, nurses, social workers, co uncil uh workers, ordinary people who are not dest itute but have felt the living standard squeeze and are open to a pitch from a Yeah. Um and we'll talk more about his ideas for the country after the break. Let's take a quick break here Tom, your piece that you wrote back in September gave a great insight, I think the most thorough insight into Burnham's vision for Britain. Manchesterism as it's been dubbed. Could you give us an overview of what Manchesterism means? Yeah, because I I I went up to see him I think it was in September, wasn't it? Um conference. Just a coincidence that that calendar quirk there. You cynic. And uh I I remember pushing him on it and sort of using the word Burnhamism. I was like, uh you know, w what is Burnhamism? And I was sort of probing him, pushing him to explain it and give um give substance to to to his critique of of of Kirstarmer and the and the Labor Party . And one of one of the critiques is sort of what we mentioned at the beginning, is a kind of factionalism that he sees that the the Keir Starmer operation as being too factional and that it just needs to bring the Labour family back together. But then the other was this more kind of ideological criticism. And he preferred Manchesterism. It was him that offered up this term, Manchesterism, which is actually loaded in a different way. It's a dismissive term o of um of a kind of free market um world that had this kind of idealistic vision of a land of plenty, but was actually uh you know, of smokesta cks and terrible conditions in in uh in factories and all the rest. But Burnham was explaining it as a or trying to I think claim own ership in a in a sense of Manchester's economic success over the past ten or twenty years. It's a sense of um a consistency of approach of working across parties in a region for putting, as he puts it, place above uh above uh party. So working with the Lib Dems, working with others. So that there is a kind of tenure horizon uh where people can invest into the region and get guaranteed returns. And then I think there is an element of state intervention that Burnham sees as crucial, which is using the power of local government to intervene so that you create better conditions for investment. And a lot of that investment has to be said is coming from abroad. And it's a the you know, it can actually be a little bit uncomfortable for a lot of people. It's a kind of a form of um some people would dismiss it as a kind of form of PFI, or some people would con see it as you know foreign direct investment of the type that actually is felt like it's hollowed out parts of the country. You know, just a lot of investment from China or the Middle East or something like that. Like is it real? Some people will will will ask. But to Burnham, he would say that this is a kind of uh business friendly socialism and that the job of a state, local government in this case, but of a state more widely, is to create the conditions where life is affordable and the basics are catered for and it is uh at a cost that is reasonable for the people that need to use those uh basics, whether it's housing, transport, y you know, public services in general. Uh and it is affordable for the state and that the state can contain the costs. And it was this part of the discussion that actually got us onto this quote that has now become infamous. Yeah. The you know Burnham saying we m we can't be in hock to the bond markets . And the context is really important, I think, because what Burnham was trying to say was that the British state ha still has to provide all of these things. It has to provide housing for people who need it. It has to provide you know water and the basics of life. But it has lost control over the cost because it is provided privately. And that unless the state can gain control over that, it is always going to be in hoc to to people. And I think obviously a lot of people would say the fundamentals are Britain is in hockey to the bond markets because we borrow money from them. Yes. That bit of the of the conversation has has been slightly lost and I think it it it gets at something at least significant about his philosophy, you know, whether you think it's a it's good or bad. There isn't there is a th I think a a a consistent or coherence there about what he is um arguing for. And I detect in it as well a sense slightly of looking back because he talks about wanting to undo thatcher ism. And I think he's very much looking at his own childhood and saying, you know, I remember a world in which y uh housing was provided by the council or that you went to your loc al leisure centre and it was a council run leisure centre and all of all of your mates went there. And you could go to your swimming lessons and you can go to play fiberside football or whatever it may be. And I think there is a sense out there in the country that that has been lost somehow. And that is now provided by a private sector and that kind of coherence of a of a community that that comes around a leisure Aaron Powell Yeah. And it's interesting to look at his language on this, because he's spoken about it recently since Josh Simon stood aside in Makefield. He said he wants stronger public control over energy, housing, water, transport. So that's not ren ationalising those things. And it's quite interesting to see, you know, the B network in Manchester, the buses, which are the main, you know, it's sort of the flagship thing that he you know, that he boasts about his success in Manchester that people recognise when you speak to people especially locally, what they know about him. They will cite the buses, you know, it's an extremely popular policy. They're not nationalised either, right? They're run by private operators. It's just the local government has control of them again via a franchise scheme. So is he trying to graft that idea onto the utilities that he's talking about and the basic public services that he's talking about. Yeah. And I think you can look at this in two ways, right? You can say that he is, you know, fraudulently claiming to be more left wing than he is, you know, which is what his critics will say. Or you could say, look, he's not that radical, but it is a kind of um you're entering into something new that he is what he wants more control and he wants the B network to be more like TFL. And that actually a lot of the things that Andy Burnham would say is, well, why can't Manchester have that system that seems to work well for London? Yeah. And you could you hear it time and again with him. You know, I remember talking to him about Heathrow . And at the time I was speaking to him, I think there was another uh row about Heathrow you know, third runway in Heathrow. And he just thought why are we having this row when we've got Manchester Airport that could be expanded or, you know, concentrated on that and linked into a tube network in the same way that you know Heathrow is. Now I think there is an you know, I think he he thinks um about HS two, you know, there was a sort of appallingly handled and And the fact that it hasn't reached Manchester and that it wasn't going to reach Manchester, the fact that it was announced in Manchester by Rishi Sunak for sort of s say so much about British politics. Yeah. And he wants not just that , but y you know, the HS three system plus a tube network for Manchester. Uh I think that y I mean i again i I think it depends on how much leeway you'll you're prepared to give uh Andy Burnham on this? Do you think it's a kind of fraud or j uh and sort of um just a backward looking uh exercise in grievance? Or do you think it's actually something slightly new about British societ British politics. And actually there there is something in what say a Dominic Cummings plus a George Osborne plus Andy Burnham. They all say something similar that this country is fundament ally imbalanced. And that it the the the part of the fragility of the country, the part of the reality, the fact that we're so in hockey the bond markets, that the the uh the governments are so frag ile is because we are so reliant on one part of the country. And if anything goes wrong there, you know, the whole country is is has a problem. And that we would be much more secure as a country if Yeah. Well that was the driving thesis behind Northern Powerhouse under the Tories, under levelling up under the Tories. I mean Keir Starmer spoke about national renewal and they also have their taking back control bill, now an act, you know, d greater devolution. And nevertheless, all of those policies have fallen short of actually rebalancing or actually balancing the economy. And it's interesting in Head North, Andy Burnham's book with Steve Rotherham, Mayor of Liverpool, they talk about the Treasury Green Book as being this like villain of the piece where because it's so obsessed with you know a certain way of calculating returns on investment, it's all concentrated on the South East and London and you know, projects like the one you were talking about that he'd like to see in Manchester, you know, they have to prove themselves well beyond any other anything else to even get a look in and they were saying sort of tear up the green book and do things differently. Do you get the impression that if he got into Downing Street we could be looking at such radical change? Because already you're hearing him say, you know, I'm gonna stick to the fiscal rules, you know , he talked about stronger public control rather than renationalising those utilities we were just talking about. Um and he's also stepped back from his, you know, I would rejoin Europe. He's he we know, for political reasons he's sort of But already you're seeing the straight talking radical insurgent Andy Burnham who sticks it to Westminster having to temper his language. Yeah, and he's talked about his commitment to the fiscal rules. Uh I think. Um yeah. Uh again, I I think it's partly how cynical you want to be about this, how sceptical you you are naturally of Andy Burnham. You know, he the Westminster and you know probably the lobby in general is incredibly sceptical of Andy Burnham. You know, they uh they see him as this kind of chameleon figure who will, you know, say whatever is necessary to win power. And they they uh yeah I think there was a cartoon in the Times today talking about sort of Andy Burnham, you know, if you don't like these principles I have other principles uh available. Um and and Andy Burnham is very acutely aware that that is his reputation. You know, he really bristles about it. You know, and he's open about you know about the fact that he finds it frustrating. He finds the jokes about uh what is the joke that goes does the round about you know uh a a brown eye a blair right walking into a bar it's hello Mr Burnham he he repeats that and knows that it he finds it frustrating because he say he he would say uh I can't remember the football analogy that he uses, but it's something like, you know, if you're a footballer, you y you know, you d you may not like the manager, but you play for them. And it you know, he's right. He his sense is that oh, you know, I'm I try to be loyal to Blair Brown and Corbin and therefore I get accused of being a hypocrite um and that he's gone back to Manchester, he's found a sense of y you know, who he is and a kind of project that he thinks works. Um and again, he is sort of dismissed as uh as being a hypocrite as a result. I think though it is reasonable to be sceptical about not just Andy Burnham as a person, but any leader who goes into number ten, given that we've had, you know, what is it, six Prime Ministers now since uh since Brexit, you know, maybe a maybe a seventh soon. Um, many of them who talk about this kind of thing. You know, I think Boris Johnson tried to rip up the green book. Yeah. Rachel Reeves has already done that in a sense. You know, I when I went to see uh Rachel Reeves, uh she was talking about you know projects in uh or complaints that she was having about projects in London that hadn't been given the go ahead. And in fact that she had given the go ahead to pro jects in Leeds and and uh other parts of the North. And she was rolling her eyes at the London based journalists who were, you know, bemoaning the fact that the N orthern Line or the Bakerloo line or something hadn't been given the extension and she'd done it for the northwest. Um you know, I I saw actually it's funny, I remember seeing actually, 'cause the two places that I know quite well that Catford in South East London had not been given some money from the Treasury, but Darlington, where I grew up, uh had, and there were some sort of right wing economists who were saying this is actually ludicrous in a darling ton doesn't need it. Darling Darlington's got enough facilities uh as as a train station, whereas Catford, you know, deals with all of these people and it's you know Sod's Law, you moved down to from Darlington to near Catford and Yeah, well exactly I remember uh yeah, I mean when I was when I grew up in in the north east I Labour was completely dominant. I moved to uh the South east London and now Labour's completely don't South East London so you don't get any money. But I um I don't know I I I think is how how radical is this? George Osborne has been talking about creating Northern Powerhouse, Boris Johnson was talking about leveling up. You know, I I think you have to look. I think it's like a duty on us to look at well, what are the structural reasons why this never happens? Yeah. Well that we don't level up. You know, uh I was thinking about that famous photograph of Margaret Thatcher in Teesside, where she's on that desolate, you know, um uh uh industrial estate and saying we we will bring this up. You know. And that's still happening now. People will still go to Teaside as a place to say, you know, we are going to bring this up. You know, nobody's done it for y however long it's been deteriorating for uh this we've been r you know reading and writing the same cultural stories about the decline of Birmingham and uh and other cities. I think this is perhaps why Andy Burnham has got a bit of an allure about him in the same way that Boris Johnson did. In that Manchester has at least the sense that it has turned a corner, and that it has grown more quickly than other major cities. Burnham tal ks about it's grown twice the rate of other cities. You only have to go to Manchester City Center to see that there is something to it. You know, that there is a there is a sense that it is a successful city , at least in the centre. There are then questions about the periphery as there are about Britain in general. But I think that sense that Burnham, like Boris Johnson, is a good salesman for his city, that he can somehow represents it, that he somehow embodies a sense of optimism about that. I think all of that combines somehow to fuel a sense that maybe Burnham can appeal on both sides, perhaps in a similar way to Boris Johnson . We're going to take another quick break now. Remember you can listen to the New Statesman podcast ad-free by downloading the News Statesman app. It's available on iOS and Android. Links are in the show notes. On this week's episode of The Exchange, our Longform Interviews podcast, we speak to Eric Schlosser, one of America's foremost investigative journalists, about the hidden systems underpinning modern life. Search the exchange wherever you're listening to this. Subscribe to the New Statesman Today and get your first six weeks for only six pounds. Go to NewStatesman.com forward slash six weeks to subscribe today. We'll be back after this . Welcome back to the politics show from the New Statesman. I'm still here with Tom. I was thinking when you were talking about those pots of money, you know, that didn't go to Darlington. All you know issued from Whitehall. This is the kind of thing that Burnham says that he hates, you know, he rails against it. He says people in Whitehall shouldn't be making decisions about people's lives elsewhere. And he wants that massive devolution to happen, you know tax raising powers, for example, and everything else. Although it's a bit of a cliche in British politics, isn't it, that whoever comes in to Downing Street doesn't want to immediately give all their power away? Will Burnham be finally be the break with that cliche, do you think? I think there's potential. I think there's potential for that. Um I do think though , because he because he believes it, you know, he but he but he does believe it. I mean I've been there with him at of at places where he's talked about the need where if he could get more control in Manchester and he could bring together um benefit uh pots, uh welfare uh spending pots and uh health spending pots that you could make more efficiencies. And the fact that they're you know they're sort of separate doesn't make any sense where they're the in the issues are so intimately connected. That makes sense. People can understand that. I think though we have to also put a slightly cynical hat on here for a minute and think it clearly is a lot easier to be a popular mayor or devolved leader in Britain. You know, the the SNP have been winning for, you know uh years and years and years. Uh w elections after elections they've been winning 'cause they stand aga inst Westminster. Andy Burnham is popular in Manchester, in part because of the way he handled himself during COVID. He was representing a region perceived you know who that was was uh per itceived itself to be being treated badly by Westminster that was out of touch down there. London mayors are constantly reelected. Yeah. Because they again they're seen as standing up for their region. None of them I think have to do what a Prime Minister has to do, which is to effectively choose between priorities and say, right, we are going to tax from these people and give to these people and we're going to uh these people are going to be losers and these people are going to be winners. And they have to s shoulder all of the difficult decisions. Yeah. Uh as well. And then money is then handed down from tr uh the treasury into these uh different parts of the country that then get to spend it. And then a more popular . Yeah. As a result. I mean there's a kind of structural imbalance in the way devolution has been set up in this country. Um which uh is not certainly not to Westminster's benefit, I don't think. Yeah. And what about this idea, talking more about his personality and and his sort of personal brand? Of if he I mean, even running in the by election, but if he does make it to Downing Street, does that sheen come off then sort of almost immediately, you know, because being mayor, like you say, it gives you that s kind of local brand. He talks about place before party. He gets mocked for it in Westminster, but you know, he talks about the Westminster bubble and how, you know, there's not enough northern accents on the front bench. He's I remember when I interviewed him he said that to me and you know a lot of people in Westminster got in touch to kind of say, well he was a special advisor and you know and all that. So he gets a a bit of mockery for that too, which he doesn't enjoy either. Um, you know, chips and gravy and all that. Um when I originally wrote that, Pete. I didn't know peop people may not know this story, because I thought it was an apocryphal story. Yeah. One of those sort of It was like a silly joke. That he was asked on Mum's net the famous biscuit question, you know, what what's your favourite biscuit? And he replied, chips and gravy. And I thought I I wrote it in the original piece as a as an apocryphal story. And then somebody says it's not apocryphal. He said that. You're obviously not on mum's net enough time. I'm not, no. You bouted me. But I I re I remember going and finding the quote. Yeah. And again I remember it was so Andy in a sense , because I could hear him saying it in that he was asked and his reply was oh I'm I'm not much I haven't got much of a sweet tooth. I uh but if you if if you gave me beer chips and gravy I'd be happy or something something along those lines. And I think you could say like is that a reasonable answer for a man in his fifties who doesn't like ginger nuts or whatever he doesn't like but he does like chips and gravy . Um but there is a sense at which it's it's he's not aware that to a lot of people that sounds ludicrous. You know, that you know I might like uh a beer and chips and gravy, but I'd probably avoid saying it to mum's net if it if I was ever asked. Um But uh yeah, I I sort of think there's I I I thought there was you have to think about have to understand Annie in those he he is sincere I think in in the moment. And I think that's c if you if you look at the question on Europe at the moment. He's trying to dance on the head of a pin here. You know he he talks to me in this in this piece um about how uh you know he he wants the Labour Party to be more honest about the disaster of Brexit, to be more clear about that. He talks uh he then went and had I think it was an event with the Guardian at the Labour Party Conference a few days later. When he said it absolutely clearly you know that long term he'd he'd love to see it uh Britain back in the EU. He's got a Dutch wife. You know, he's spent a lot of time in Europe. He talks quite I think sincerely about his sense that uh he believes in unions. He doesn't feel English, he says to me, but British. Uh and I I thought it was quite interesting. He felt that the North West was the kind of centre point of the wider British Isles, you know, a kind of crossroads of uh Scotland and and um Wel Welsh migration and Irish migration and English and he was able to feel, you know, uh everything, all of his identities uh at once there. And and he in his view, his argument was that y you know, you could be British and European at the same time. And I think he sincerely feels that. But it's interesting to watch him today, you know, we're recording at about half past three on a on Monday, but he's already in trouble because he is saying that he is not advocating for go back in going back into the European Union. And I think that does open the question, you know, that is that is a tricky w argument to make. You're not advocating for it. You would like it to happen in your lifetime, but as Prime Minister you won't pursue it. When would you pursue it then if you if not when you're Prime Minister? I think there's a reasonable question that he has to um he has to face, or at least come up with a an answer um that does not require levels of explanation that are exactly bogged down. Yeah, which is what happened in the Corbyn years, isn't it when they tried to come up with a line on Europe that pleased everyone and ended up pleasasinging ple no one. Um it's interesting. I was speaking to someone in reform earlier today to say, you know, what do you think what what do you think you'll do against Burnham? What's the best lines for you to use? What kind of candidate should you have? And they And they did mention they mentioned his line on Europe, but that the main thing they were saying was we need someone local, so not to do another Matt Goodwin, you know, and have someone attention seeking like they not attention seeking, but sort of attention grabbing in in in Gorton and Denton, someone sort of from from the local area and to paint Andy Burnham as someone who's been searching for a seat anywhere and, you know, isn't actually grounded locally in Makerfield, even though he lives very close by, grew up very close by. Um and to paint him as a carpet bagger. Um and I wonder whether that is sort of their best chance, given that we know that voters care so much about sort of being respected and having their you know, having themselves reflected back at them and and and maybe that's maybe that is a potential vulnerability as well. I think it's a potential vulnerability, but given that he grew up on the borders of this seat. Yeah. And he's so represent you know of this area. He's always been from from this area. He lives in area he grew up in the area. I think that is quite a difficult uh argument to land. I think the sense that actually the big gest kick against the establishment you could give would be to vote Reform rather than to vote for Burnham. That is the that is perhaps the weakness that he fears the most in that he knows that this his his entire by election and future Labour leadership uh campaign is premised on the idea that he represents change, immediate change, that he's going into this using this by election in a sense as a a leadership change pitch, that you will get a double whammy here. Yeah. You will uh defeat the Labour leadership, give them a bloody nose, and r change the labour labour leadership. And you get something new, you get something uh a bit more uh to the left. Uh the fact that if he starts to be made to look like a figure that's having to do all of these compromises, that he's co already compromising with his, you know, Southern uh Labour members or, you know, always having to uh change his mind on Europe on these kind of questions. I think that is a vulnerability for him that he has to uh he has to watch. The other thought that I had um watching this unfold today clear that when it comes to the election in the by election in a a month's time, and if he wins and he's won, you know, by a a a reasonable margin, which is very, very possible, uh, then all of this stuff on Europe will sort of melt away a little bit what what we've seen just now. Because he will then say, Look, I proved it. Yeah. I can I can y unite unite the left and and beat the right and therefore you know, my, case is being made, even though I've got these difficulties, these contradictions perhaps in in my pitch. But I was thinking of Theresa May in twenty seventeen. You know, she had a a fairly strong pitch to the country, you know, strong and stable leadership. You know we've been now in this position of of Prime Ministers asking to be given a mandate for strong and stable leadership now for almost a decade. Yeah. And none of them have managed it. But she was making this pitch and she completely lost control. She was she was asking for a mandate, if we remember, to be able to negotiate from a position of strength with the European Union. That was the entire point of that 2017 general election. And what she wasn't prepared to say is, okay, what are you going to use that strength for? Now we kind of now know that she was trying to get it so that she could have a softer form of Brexit than the one the Conservative Party would have give uh w allowed her. She was asking for the strength to push through something that was more uh in line with what she wanted. Uh and she didn't get it because people A didn't know what she was going to use it for and then didn't trust her to use it only for that. You know, they then thought, well you're gonna use it to you know, impose a dementia tax and all that. And so she completely lost control. I think we we should be alive to that uh possibility here. But Andy Bernon will lose control of this by election, the Labour Party will lose control of it and it will be about something else. Perhaps not even Europe, something that we don't even know about. Yeah. Some yeah, I mean uh grooming gangs in the Northw,est for example, uh something could could could sort of smash the narrative that he wants to go into this by-election using. Um, anyway, uh thank you so much, Tom. That was a really interesting discussion. And I think anyone who wants to hear more about Tom's profile should go back and listen to that origin al podcast episode that you did about it because it is fascinating. It's such an insight into his thinking. You've been listening to the politics show from the New Statesman with me, Anush Shekellian and my colleague Tom McTague. This episode was produced by Rob Lamaire .