Andy Burnham must deliver real joy for Britain

Paul W Fleming is general secretary of Equity

Whether history will remember Keir Starmer at all remains to be seen, but if any part of his resignation lasts for posterity, it will be the background hum of ‘Ode to Joy’. This fourth movement of Beethoven’s Ninth is rich in both particular and abstract symbolism for the demise of our latest PM, but also for what needs to come next.

Starmer rose to power by manipulating the pro-EU sentiment (of which the Ode is the anthem) of many progressive Labour members. He rode roughshod over Schiller’s lyrics which inspired Beethoven’s piece, lyrics which invoke “rescue from the tyrants fetters” were not the watchword of his increasingly authoritarian positions on public protest and freedom of expression. His approach to internal party management, which showed from the moment of his ascent to the Labour leadership, was hardly ‘pride before kingly power’. To be fair one line did land, the invocation to ‘Suffer on courageous millions’; from feet dragging on the two child benefit cap to the inane cruelty of the Winter Fuel debacle, but like his unspoken caveats on the Israeli government’s right to cut off vital utilities to Gaza, Starmer left the following line ‘Suffer for a better world’ out of his repertoire.

Perhaps the final, and most poetic, connexion is found in the title of the Final Movement. Surely it was joy that was overwhelmingly felt at the end of this tenure. Strikingly, the enthusiasm for Andy Burnham’s arrival in parliament, and more importantly that shown by the people of Makerfield last week, was in stark contrast. It is a good start, but for a Burnham premiership to be a success it cannot just be vibes, a happiness rooted in nothing but circumstance, but true joy, a ‘resilient gladness’ rooted in a commitment to those things which are true, necessary, and good.

In the early days of what increasingly seems to be an inevitability, a Burnham Ministry needs to show it is capable of being reactive, proactive, and take good counsel. That is to say that it responds to the calamitous structural undermining of the British economy and social contract, addresses toxic party cultures which will destroy Labour from the get-go.

It is obvious that a managerialist approach to water, energy, Royal Mail, prisons, and other areas of our economy has to end. The speed of rail re nationalisation is slow, and the end result still does not produce a service truly run for the public. A renewed Labour government must not shy away from reacting to this increasingly creaking system, where the option of continued privatisation replaces the structural failings of one operator with another. Whether Thames Water or the continued reckless behaviour of undermining the universal service of Royal Mail, Burnham has a mandate to nationalise, regionalise, and municipalise for the better. 

Nowhere is this more possible than the BBC. A jewel in the crown of the welfare state, its current charter requires 30% of content to be tendered for. An enormous state asset is being stripped before our eyes, with repeated charters and governments demanding simultaneously that it behaves commercially, but taking away its great commercial advantages in a back catalogue of programming, and dictating uncompetitive limits on its ability to produce and directly employ. Charter renewal remains all to play for, and a good Burnham government will seize on it to show its stripes – from governance reform to stopping the leaks of revenue caused by the corrosive de factor internal market.

From cleaners to actors at the BBC, but also contracted out staff across the economy, Labour’s 2024 manifesto promised the biggest wave of insourcing for a generation. It simply hasn’t happened. As retired low income civil servants continue to grapple with Capita to get their pensions, and as TfL still fails to take in cleaning staff, it’s a commitment with a mandate which can put money into workers’ pockets, improve the quality of the services we need, and grow the dignity of the workers who serve our society.

The most convincing growth tool in Labour’s 2024 manifesto was, in fact, the Employment Rights Act. By empowering workers who spend to take back the capital they create from those who hoard, is a quick and serious way to show the working class who Burnham’s Labour is really for. Like the non-existent wave of insourcing, a single worker status is now lost in a Whitehall in-tray, despite it being a clear manifesto commitment. Adopting true sectoral collective bargaining in key areas from healthcare to distributions does not require a new mandate, just serious endeavour and imagination. For Equity members, seeing sectoral bargaining imposed in video games, which enjoy a liberal tax credit regime, or TV commercials, the single area of UK scripted content where sectoral collective agreements have been torn up, are easy wins to help vulnerable workers – and protect artists in a sector of the economy designated by an industrial strategy since 2024.

The recent Mainstream pamphlet ‘The Productive State’ (Lawrence & Williams) is a manifesto for how Burnham’s Manchesterism can be the acorn to grow an oak of a new British state. Balancing the mandate achieved in 2024 with tackling the scale of the crises which have arisen since, is no mean feat. But it is possible to consolidate the policies of 2024 and the instincts of a proper Labour government to build a productive state which leads to equitable growth – doing the job of the current manifesto properly, and at speed, balanced with better, bolder instincts rooted in the public good – is the material change that’s needed to ‘spark joy’.

Which leaves that third element: the need to take good counsel. The absence of a leadership contest could mean no involvement for the trades union movement in shaping the agenda of this new government, but more importantly to build alliances with it. There is an irony that to rebuild a broad church Labour Party, a party that connects to shop floors, workers, and communities, any new Leader must isolate those who are set against such pluralism. A ruthless wide embrace is the necessary tool of party management, an embrace which encompasses trades unions, parliamentarians, the broader movement, and party members as legitimate voices whose priorities are to be incorporated and not silenced. Those, however, who have sought to harass and deselect, to compel union disaffiliation, and simply ‘own the left’ can have no place in a government of any talent, let alone a sham basket of ‘all the talents’. The Party, and the Movement cannot sustain a blind eye being turned to the continued incorporation of those who would appoint Peter Mandelson, but equivocate on Thames Water or freedom of expression.

Ode to Joy has long been an anthem of the workers’ movement, right back to when Equity member Paul Robeson sang its lyrics via telephone to a Welsh miners’ festival. It’s also long been an anthem of transition, often used from the end of one year to the next in concerts and on radio. Whether Monday’s press conference gives rise to true joy, not just an empty and uncomfortable schadenfreude remains to be seen – but the path to do so is clear.

Image credit: Scottish Government – Creative Commons