Britain’s PM is on a ‘Burnham bounce.’ When will he fall to earth?

By Billy Stockwell, CNN

London (CNN) — Some have dubbed it the “Burnham bounce.”

That is, the surge in public support for the UK’s governing Labour Party after the former mayor of Manchester Andy Burnham took to the helm this summer as the country’s seventh prime minister in a decade.

But the problems which plagued Burnham’s predecessor, including over immigration, the souring of the economy amid the Iran war and rising geopolitical tensions, linger – and cannot be fixed by optimism alone.

This week, Burnham is under intense pressure to demonstrate he has a solution to such issues at the first Labour Party conference of his premiership, all while the hard-right Reform UK party closely tails Labour in the polls.

So, what are the key hurdles that Burnham must overcome?

Squeezed by the right and left

Despite facing a drumbeat of allegations about its party finances in recent months, Nigel Farage’s Reform UK is only narrowly behind Labour in the polls – something Farage pointed to when Burnham recently ruled out an early general election.

“It’s obvious that Andy Burnham doesn’t want talk of a General Election overshadowing Labour’s conference,” Farage posted on X Friday. “Reform are ready for an election whenever it is called.”

Reform has lost some buoyancy following a string of damning financial scandals, the latest of which prompted a criminal investigation into party donations. Reform denies any wrongdoing and says it will “cooperate fully with the investigation.”

But the populist, anti-migrant party – which won big in England’s local elections earlier this year – clearly poses a threat to Burnham, particularly as anti-immigrant sentiments are bubbling to the surface in some parts of the country.

Earlier this month, major anti-migration protests swept along parts of Britain’s coastline with hundreds of balaclava-wearing demonstrators blocking roads and clashing with police, scenes which Burnham called “unacceptable.”

“This is not something we have seen in this country before,” he told the BBC on Sunday, while accepting that “there are real worries about immigration in all parts of country.”

Meanwhile, the prime minister is having to claw back progressives who defected to the Green Party under Starmer, as left-wing factions sought pastures new over Labour’s stance on issues like net zero and the Gaza conflict.

The threat posed by the Greens will be tested next week when the party’s leader, Zack Polanski, contests an election to become the next Member of Parliament (MP) in London’s Holborn and St Pancras constituency – Starmer’s former seat for over a decade.

The economy

During his first weeks as prime minister, Burnham announced a raft of policies targeting Britain’s economic woes, aiming to ease the pressure on cash-strapped households.

One policy was the reduction of bus fares in England, outside of London, to a maximum of £2 (about $2.60). He also announced plans to cut business rates bills for pubs and music venues, and touted other tax cuts for household electricity bills.

Such commitments have been cast as small fry by some challengers. “I find myself asking, is that it?” Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch said in July. And the pledges Burnham set out, including building more social housing and bringing essential utilities under greater public control, must all be funded under the same constraints faced by Starmer. Quite how remains an open question.

The economy is front-and-center of this year’s conference, which takes place just weeks before the new chancellor delivers the first budget of the Burnham government, setting out the approach to taxation and spending.

Burnham vowed to take “difficult decisions” on the economy earlier this month after official data showed a rise in inflation amid rising energy prices due to conflict in the Middle East.

The latest inflation figures were a “concern,” Burnham said, but he also spoke of the “resilience” of the British economy. “It is going to be challenging, because the picture around the world is challenging, particularly the situation in the Middle East, and we will look carefully at all those things.”

Party unity

Burnham entered 10 Downing Street with a sizeable entourage of supporters, having secured the backing of 379 out of 403 Labour MPs.

Mood within the party is still said to be chirpy and there is a lack of appetite to criticize the new leader, according to British media reports, but opposition is clearly growing in some quarters.

Ahead of the Labour conference, Peter Kyle – who previously served as Starmer’s business secretary – said the government was not focused enough on economic growth and needed to act with “more urgency.”

Asked by the BBC if there was enough focus on growth, Kyle said, “I don’t think there is and that isn’t a criticism – it is pointing to the potential that we have as a country and as a government.”

He said the government must “feel the need for economic growth” as acutely as it does about ending social ills such as rough sleeping – a pointed reference to a key pledge Burnham made in his first speech as prime minister.

Meanwhile, Housing Secretary Angela Rayner, who was deputy head of the Labour party under Starmer before her 2024 resignation, has called out a planned change to visa rules which would impact foreign social care workers.

That led to Burnham’s culture secretary, Lisa Nandy, taking to the radio to voice her support for her boss.

“I think the reason, frankly, that we had a change of leadership at the start of this year is because we all felt that people need to feel the change in their lives that we promised in 2024 much more quickly,” she told the BBC.

The prime minister is “impatient for change, and he thinks big about the sort of change that the country needs,” she added.

Burnham is also facing opposition from grassroots Labour groups over the government’s stance on the conflict in Gaza, with some demanding Burnham bans arms sales to Israel and introduces “wide-ranging” sanctions on the country.

An early election?

As mentioned, Burnham has already batted off the idea of an early general election.

“No election anytime soon. I’m focused on the job as prime minister, doing what I said I would do,” he said last week. As it stands the next election must be called before August 2029.

A strong election win would likely consolidate Burnham’s power and give him the mandate needed to push forward the policy changes set out at the beginning of his premiership.

A failure to call an election could lead to accusations of weakness, as it did for former British leader Gordon Brown. After a successful start to his tenure, things went downhill for Brown in 2007 when he ducked a widely expected general election – a move then-Conservative leader David Cameron cast as a “humiliating retreat.”

But an early election could also carry the risk of putting Labour’s falling support in opinion polls since the 2024 election under the spotlight, as Reform and Labour vie for the upper hand.

Burnham is therefore in somewhat of a “Catch-22” over this decision.

“The Labour Party are back in the lead. But are we in a situation where it would seem to make sense for Andy Burnham to go to the country anytime soon? Definitely not,” John Curtice, professor of politics at the University of Strathclyde and a leading polling expert, told Times Radio on Thursday.

It’s clear which option Burnham would rather take, at least for now.

“The time has come to draw a line, get the country looking forward, pulling together, people feeling a bit of hope in their lives again,” Burnham told the BBC.

“That’s what I’m trying to do, and I hope to take it further in the coming period rather than putting people back into an election cycle.”

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