The China Mail - UK Labour party to crown Burnham as leader and next PM

As centre-left Labour has an overwhelming majority in parliament, the 56-year-old is set to replace Keir Starmer in 10 Downing Street on Monday, a mere four weeks after he sensationally returned as an MP following a nine-year absence.

Burnham will become the UK's seventh prime minister in a decade, as British lawmakers appear increasingly willing to turn against their own leaders when their party runs into political hot water.

Burnham -- nicknamed "King of the North" for winning three successive elections to the Greater Manchester mayoralty -- faced no challengers for the Labour leadership.

He becomes the centre-left party's leader at the third attempt following failed bids in 2010 and 2015, when he lost out to Ed Miliband and Jeremy Corbyn respectively.

Burnham, an MP between 2001 and 2017 and former government minister, has since reinvented himself as a man of the people, melding a relaxed folksy style with slick social media videos.

Labour MPs hope he can communicate with the public better than Starmer and that he is willing to take a more radical approach to reforming Britain's battered public services and firing up the economy.

"We've got to give people a lift, haven't we? We've got to give people a stronger sense of hope and a feeling that the country's on the way back," Burnham said on a podcast with ex-footballer Gary Lineker on Wednesday.

Labour is betting that he is the party's best chance of reining in Nigel Farage's anti-immigrant Reform UK party, tipped in the polls to win the next general election, expected in 2029.

Starmer returned Labour to power after 14 years in opposition in July 2024 with a landslide victory over the Conservatives, who had cycled through four leaders in five years.

Starmer's premiership quickly became characterised by domestic policy missteps and controversies, including his appointment of ex-Jeffrey Epstein associate Peter Mandelson as ambassador to Washington.

Disastrous local and regional election results in May heaped further pressure on Starmer, which became impossible to withstand after Burnham won a parliamentary by-election on June 18, allowing him to run for leader.

Most Labour MPs then withdrew their support for Starmer and on June 22 he announced that he was resigning.

Later that day, Burnham was feted by dozens of Labour lawmakers as he was sworn into parliament, in a clear sign that they wanted him to take over.

- 'Rewired' economy -

Burnham, regularly seen in his trademark dark t-shirt and casual jacket, has secured the backing of 379 of Labour's 403 MPs, with no one mustering the 81 nominations required to challenge him.

Burnham, who hails from the party's so-called soft left, has said he is "deeply grateful" for the across-the-party support and trust of Labour MPs.

"That is the circuit breaker I am offering: power out of Westminster, an economy rewired for ordinary people, and good growth in every postcode."

His flagship idea is to devolve powers to other cities and create a "No. 10 North" based in Manchester to ensure regions outside the British capital are not neglected.

But he will face the same unenviable challenges that beset Starmer: a tepid economy, high government borrowing costs, and irregular migrants arriving in small boats that have fuelled support for Reform.

Unpredictable energy prices due to the US-Iran war and a volatile US president in Donald Trump also threaten to buffet his premiership.

Burnham, who will take office after meeting head of state King Charles III, has vowed to stick to Labour's 2024 election manifesto by not raising the country's main taxes.

He will need to find the money from elsewhere to fill a £4.7 billion ($6.3 billion) gap over four years in the defence investment plan and will also have to navigate the thorny issue of welfare reform.

W.Tam--ThChM