Luke Graham was the Conservative Member of Parliament for Ochil and Perthshire South from 2017 to 2019, the candidate in Perth and Kinross-shire in 2024, and a former head of the Downing Street Union Unit.
Another week, another Prime Minister. This time with no election, only a by-election and swift party coronation – never will I ever stand for any Labour supporter shouting at me for “evading democracy” by changing leaders mid-Parliament again.
Burnham’s accession does not simply change Labour’s fortunes—it reshapes the political battlefield for every major party. He will inherit a vast majority and will take over from a Prime Minister who, fairly or not, is one of the most unpopular politicians of modern times (-66 according to Ipsos). Burnham has a low baseline but a firm foundation on which to build his government. The past two weeks have seen newspapers, magazines and podcasts flooded with articles about Burnham’s likely cabinet and various ideas for government. Most of which involve being “truly Labour” with nationalisation of utilities, a further expansion of welfare and state-led social house building.
And although he has thrown out a half-interesting idea of placing indirectly elected mayors in the House of Lords for Scotland, Wales and England, most of Parliament and the country do not know what he stands for.
However, what we do know is that Andy Burnham and “Manchesterism” poll better with Reform and SNP voters than with Conservative voters, and both parties know it. Speaking to a leading Reform analyst – they were very clear that Andy Burnham was not a good outcome for Reform, threatening to tempt back the 20-30 per cent of Labour voters who voted or were considering voting Reform. Burnham’s regional focus and working-class rhetoric challenges Reform’s monopoly on anti-establishment politics and will make it far harder for that party to claim they are fighting the “uni-party” of British politics.
Meanwhile, in Scotland where the SNP relies on an incompetent and weak Westminster government to prop up their failed administration, a more avidly left-wing Westminster government threatens the nationalist grip across Scotland’s central belt. As we saw in 2024, a revitalised Labour party is bad news for the SNP, damaging its vote share and paving the way for further SNP losses.
For us as Conservatives, there is a different challenge – a Labour party with a plan won’t be such an easy target as it has been, there will be less dithering to criticise and more substantive critique of their choices, making our job even more worthwhile. If PM Burnham truly intends for this period to be the “biggest moment of change” in 40 years, then Labour may start advancing substantive policy that isn’t just increasing welfare spending and giving away the Chagos Islands.
Meanwhile, Reform’s momentum is slowing under the weight of Nigel Farage’s £5m “gift”, the self-imposed by-election that will be testing Reform’s mettle against Count Binface, and the infighting amongst the party’s self-proclaimed “stars”. You can see the panic starting to set in – Reform politicians are becoming more and more combative in their interviews, blaming pretty much everyone other than themselves for the public’s enhanced scepticism of their party and its policies. This has been reflected in the latest round of polls which has Reform’s lead flattening out to just 1-2 percentage points ahead of Kemi’s Conservatives.
Even worse for Reform is that they are going to find themselves agreeing with a lot of PM Burnham’s policies. On nationalisation they will be arguing that Labour is following their lead, on welfare, they will be avoiding the same tough choices. The two parties of the economic left will be aligned in their populism and joined in a new state-led consensus.
In this alignment comes our party’s opportunity; we have already outlined our new policies back in June, including abolishing Stamp Duty, opening the North Sea to new exploration (not just one or two new fields), meaningful reductions in spending on welfare and the civil service as well as healthy deregulation to start to loosen up our labour markets and the wider economy.
Over the remainder of this parliament there will be opportunities to go even further and for us to reposition ourselves as the undeniable party of small business, farmers and community. We can ground our policy making in principle as much as pragmatism and redefine our party as the party of resilience and opportunity, not of populism and dependence.
We will not simply oppose a more interventionist Labour government, but articulate a coherent alternative rooted in enterprise, ownership, fiscal responsibility and economic freedom. We can bring in new incentives for training, risk-taking and embed an entrepreneurial culture that will inspire people to build new businesses, charities and families knowing that life can and will be better than it has been in the past.
Burnham’s government may be “truly Labour”, which is our opportunity to be truly Conservative.