The frontrunner to become Britain’s next prime minister, Andy Burnham, vowed in a keynote speech Monday to “bring about the biggest rebalancing of power our country has seen” if he succeeds Keir Starmer.
Burnham, currently the only candidate to replace Starmer as Labour leader and prime minister, pledged to devolve greater powers to regional mayors, including in Manchester where until recently he was in charge.
“I am going to give Britain the circuit breaker it needs,” Burnham told an invited audience in the northwest English city, pledging to put power “in the hands of the people and places who can use it best”.
“We need a new determination to raise living standards of every single person in this land,” he added.
“And we must accept that to do that, to fix the economy and the country, we need to change politics and we need to do it now.”
Delivering his speech from a Manchester museum, Burnham described Britain as “one of the most over-centralised countries in the world”.
Should the veteran Labour politician continue to face no challengers to become prime minister, the former minister and Greater Manchester could be in the post as early as mid-July.
