Andy Burnham officially becomes new Labour Party leader

Andy Burnham arrives for a labour party leadership special conference in London, Friday, July 17, 2026 <i>(Image: PA)</i>
Andy Burnham arrives for a labour party leadership special conference in London, Friday, July 17, 2026 (Image: PA)
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Andy Burnham has officially become leader of the Labour Party, with the next Prime Minister pledging to "give hope back" to communities failed by politics.

The MP for Makerfield was the only eligibly-nominated candidate, receiving 379 nominations.

Mr Burnham also received nominations from all 11 affiliated trade unions.

He will replace Sir Keir Starmer as Prime Minister, but will not officially take on that role until Monday.


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Sir Keir must formally tender his resignation to King Charles, who will then meet with Mr Burnham to ask him to form a government.

Speaking after his election, the former mayor of Greater Manchester said: "What a moment, and what a backing you've given me.

"We are united today and we put the power that comes from that unity at the service of people and places who have been waiting for too long for politics to let them hope again - we're going to give them hope back."

Mr Burnham praised his predecessor for laying the foundation for Labour to return to government, and for delivering on his promise to the Hillsborough families.

He continued: "My journey to this stage today began in earnest at Anfield in April 2009.

"The Kop made me confront the fact that this country does not work for working class communities like the city of my birth.

"In fact it's worse: it turned its back on them. Political power was used viciously against them to protect vested interests, economic power cruelly stripped with the deindustrialisation of the 1980s.

"Let us never forget that these are the very same places that built this Labour movement, but they were the places that were done down.

"This Labour movement, the trade union movement, was forged in the steelworks and ironworks of Sheffield, Scunthorpe, Port Talbot and Teesside; in the coalfields of south Wales, central Scotland, Nottinghamshire, Derbyshire, Yorkshire and Lanarkshire; in the mills across the Pennines west and east; in the shipyards on the Clyde and the Tyne; in the dockyards in Liverpool and here in London.

"The people of these proud places made Labour, but we have to ask ourselves just as I had to ask myself at Anfield that day: have we been good enough for them?

"This generation of politicians, myself included, have failed to challenge a political culture and an economic model which simply does not work for ordinary people.

"Four decades of the neoliberalism that began in the 1980s have not been kind to the places that built our party, nor to the communities across the UK in rural and coastal areas.

"We pledge today, to them, to be better."

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