You must have heard the story of Larry the cat who lives at 10 Downing Street. The British tabloid press loves to count the prime ministers Larry has outlasted. Right-wing, left-wing, liberal, even the Turkish-origin Boris Johnson from Çankırı-Turkiye
So let me start with a small reminder.
There is no such post as Prime Minister of England.
The United Kingdom is a single state made up of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. The official title is "Prime Minister of the United Kingdom". Because 84 percent of the population lives in England, everyone in the world calls it Prime Minister of England for short, but legally it is wrong. Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland already have their own First Ministers responsible for their internal affairs. England does not even have such autonomy; it is directly governed by London.
Now let's get to the real issue
Prime Minister of the United Kingdom Andy Burnham has shaken things up. In his first week in office, he pushed the racist Reform Party and its leader Nigel Farage - who for almost a year had been clearly first in all polls and seen as the certain winner of the election - into second place. He made the ruling Labour Party the first party again.
So what changed in a week in this country where even title deeds are granted for 999 years?
Let me remind you of a conversation I had four weeks ago with Manchester MP Afzal Khan. I had gone from London to Manchester for the opening of GBD Döner in Oldham, which has branches in Liverpool and Manchester. Manchester MPs Afzal Khan and Yasmin Qureshi attended the opening.
At the end of the interview I asked, "Will Burnham become prime minister?"
The experienced politician said, "He is likely to be the next Prime Minister." But from his manner and mimics I understood it was almost certain. I shared it that day as well.
Two opposing winds in Europe
Burnham's rise is fed by two opposing winds blowing at the same time in Europe. In Brussels, the end of neo-liberalism is being discussed. It is said that the EU is now shifting to a more interventionist "Fortress Europe" model. This is the exact opposite of the privatisation and liberalisation model of the 90s.
On the other hand, the picture is different in the member states.
In Germany the debt brake debate, in France the budget crisis, everywhere the return of the "there is no money" policy after inflation...
The far right is also filling this void by saying "we are defending the people against neo-liberalism".
So Europe is both trying to get out of neo-liberalism and having to return to it fiscally. As you know, with 'Brexit' the United Kingdom left the European Union...
Where does Burnham stand in this picture?
Burnham is no longer just the Mayor of Greater Manchester. He won the Makerfield by-election and returned to parliament, then after Keir Starmer's resignation he became Labour leader and took office as appointed Prime Minister.
His model has three pillars...
Anti-Thatcherist and Post-Neo-liberal
He wants to reverse the wrong turns made in the 1980s under Thatcher. Returning control of housing, water, energy and transport to the state. He demonstrated this in practice in Manchester with the Bee Network, which he built by nationalising buses.
The comments of Chatham House, the world-famous think-tank that is highly referenced in the Anglo-Saxon world, and The New Statesman, a very important political magazine, were awaited with curiosity. They see Prime Minister Andy Burnham as the representative of the model of "a state that not only regulates the market but shapes it".
Radical Devolutionist
His first promise is a "circuit-breaker", a system reset, where he will devolve most of the powers to local governments. The strongest objection to London's absolute centralism.
Its symbol became No 10 North.
Burnham opened the second branch of the Prime Minister's Office in Manchester, saying, "Growth cannot come from top-down orders, it can only be fed from bottom-up. I will give England the circuit-breaker it needs". This office in Heron House will, in his own words, be "the nerve centre of a rewired Britain".
Fiscal Orthodoxy Contradiction
As soon as his leadership was confirmed, he said "I will stick to the current fiscal rules". He did not promise a spending explosion like Jeremy Corbyn.
If he succeeds, he will represent the new trend in Europe: Fiscally orthodox, radically interventionist in social and regional policy.
So where is the Labour Party in terms of socialism?
In the United Kingdom, the Labour Party cannot be explained by a single socialism. There have been three fights in the party for a hundred years.
The Old Left, i.e. the Corbyn line, the New Labour, i.e. the Blair-Starmer line, and now the Burnham line.
The British call Burnham "municipal socialism".
Burnham wants to tame capitalism rather than destroy it.
He defines socialism not as the state in London owning everything, but as the people controlling services.
That is why he says "I am a democratic socialist".
His party Labour today is officially democratic socialist, but in practice it is a social democratic party.
In fact, what Burnham calls municipal socialism is a model we know very closely: Atatürk's statism.
The state does what the market does not do, it keeps what the people need in public ownership for the people. Neither the wild privatisation of the 80s nor the cumbersome state that governs everything from London. A local, auditable, public-owned public mind.
Even England, 40 years later, has started to take back what Thatcher sold, even nationalising its bus, what are we still discussing...
Vatan Oz
London / Manchester :)
LARRY THE CAT