Watching, and waiting

“I see this as a last chance to change, for the Labour Party and politics more generally. People are giving up on it and that has got to be addressed by a new way of thinking about things, a freshness to what we do” - Andy Burnham 

So the stakes are high. Our incoming Prime Minister recognises that, and frames his challenge not just in changing policies to meet the mood of the times, but in meeting the existential threat faced by both his party and the democratic fabric we have come to take for granted.

He is right in his analysis. On current polling not a single Labour MP in Wales would be elected in a fresh General Election. Just two years after winning 27 of the 32 seats in Wales the Party would be wiped out.

But without the challenge of a leadership election, where he would be forced to flesh out in greater detail how he intends to head off these threats, we don't know much about what Andy Burhham would do differently. We are left wondering if the ‘hopey, changey stuff’ (to use Sarah Palin’s phrase) will meet the level of the challenge.   

Instead we are left looking for clues of what his posture means for Wales. In one of the forums where he has opened himself up to questions - the online forum Reddit - Andy Burnham repeated his intention to devolve power from Whitehall. As as a former regional Mayor of a major English City, he said he would act with respect towards the devolved leaders. “I would like it to be as collaborative and pragmatic as possible. I want the same offer to power up places to be available in all parts of the UK”. 

The emphasis on ‘Place’ rather than on working through national devolved structures was reinforced in the message he gave in a speech at the People’s History Museum in Manchester at the end of June where he spoke of “offering new opportunities to extend devolution in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland by taking power deeper down”. Under the previous Conservative Government this language was code for a divide-and-rule approach of by-passing the devolved Governments and funding local Councils directly. In this vein Andy Burnham said in his first set-piece speech “The people of Dundee and Bangor feel just as distant from Holyrood and the Senedd as they do from Westminster”.  The clue-hunters in Welsh Labour became nervous, and a little dejected, by these signals.  

In the absence of clarity people project onto political leaders what they want to believe. Former First Minister Mark Drakeford had travelled to Makerfield to campaign for Andy Burnham during his by-election and on his return told the ‘For Wales, See Wales’ podcast that the new PM’s “starting point” would be a report on devolution former PM Gordon Brown wrote for Kier Starmer but had not been implemented. Mark Drakeford  said “I think Andy will be able to go back to that because the principle that Gordon Brown sets out is that nothing that is devolved to Scotland could not be devolved to Wales if the Senedd wants it”. 

That’s a far cry from the emphasis on devolving powers within Wales that interim Welsh Labour Leader Ken Skates so enthusiastically nodded to from the front row of the Manchester speech. The twitchyness about what all this meant increased when existing Welsh Secretary Jo Stephens added her support to a Burnham Prime Ministership a few days later.

Kremlinologists grew glummer still when a clumsy press officer offered a slightly tailored opinion piece in the name of Andy Burnham to news outlets in Cardiff and Edinburgh which implied his Government would take action in policy areas that were devolved to the Welsh and Scottish Parliament. In a highly unusual move Wales Online refused to publish the Op-Ed because “it was confused about where power and responsibility lies in Wales," the news site's political editor Ruth Mosalski wrote. 

What did this mean, the clue-hunters wondered aloud? Was Andy only interested in devolution to English regions? Had the devo-sceptic Welsh MPs got to him?  Hadn’t the party leadership learned the lessons of the Senedd elections where Plaid Cymru won three times as many votes as Welsh Labour, which pollsters directly attributed this a feeling that the party had shown disdain to Welsh needs.

 

To Wrexham Labour MP Andrew Ranger the obvious conclusion to draw from Andy Burnham’s signals was that devolution should not be solely focused on an all-Wales footprint; he made a pitch to ‘re-wire Wales’ to enable a North Wales region “to work as equal partners with Greater Manchester, the Liverpool City Region and other neighbouring authorities”. His essay on the Labour List website implied the creation of an elected Mayor for north east Wales who would face towards England in their primary relationships. 

To be fair to him, this would not be inconsistent with Burnham’s vision of ‘Manchesterism’.

When Mark Drakeford stood before local activists in his old Cardiff West constituency on July 4th at a small event to celebrate his service as a Senedd Member it was telling that he did not once refer to Andy Burnham in his bid to lift the mood of dejected party members.

A few days later fence mending began. In an original piece for Wales Online Andy Burnham tried again. This time he was clear that he would respect the devolution settlement. He wrote “Every place should have the freedom to become the best version of itself. That's why I support the next steps in devolution across the United Kingdom. For Wales, that means recognising that devolution is not finished”.

He doubled-down on his support for ‘taking power deeper down within Wales’, saying explicitly “I agree wholeheartedly with Ken Skates when he says places like Bangor are better placed to make decisions on improving their streets than ministers in Cardiff Bay. There will also be further responsibilities that properly belong in Welsh hands, building on the further devolution already delivered over the last two years. This should always be done through respectful partnership and with the shared aim of strengthening both Wales and the wider United Kingdom”.

So we have a triangulation: “I'll support its continued development where it strengthens both Wales and the wider United Kingdom, and I’ll support opportunities to extend devolution within Wales”, Burnham wrote.

But what does this mean in practice? Welsh Labour have had a longstanding policy position of supporting the devolution of powers over policing to the Senedd. The Home Office have kicked off a reorganisation of police forces to cut their number and this would be an opportunity to replace four we have with a single Welsh footprint. It will be an early test for the new Prime Minister’s commitment for support ‘the next steps in devolution’.

But Welsh MPs and Peers flatly oppose a single Welsh force and devolving policing powers to Wales. Would a Burnham Government take a different view? After all the Mayor of Greater Manchester has powers over policing how would the Andy Burnham justify not agreeing to similar arrangements for Wales?  Commentator Stephen Bush in the FT assesses that it is “unlikely in the extreme that a Burnham government will keep a police reform that is quite so centralised as this one, so Burnham will be looking to do something different".  

But devolving from Whitehall does not by definition mean devolving to Wales.  Maybe that’s what Andy Burnham means by offering ‘a freshness to what we do’.

While there is no doubt that Andy Burnham gets decentralisation, it is not yet clear if he understands the interplay with national identity. 

All the signs are though that voters do. May’s Senedd elections saw a direct transfer of 40% of Labour voters from the previous elections to Plaid Cymru. They told pollsters they wanted a party that was ‘Standing up for Wales.  Under Rhodri Morgan, Carwyn Jones and Mark Drakeford that had clearly been Welsh Labour. It wasn’t the case in 2026. We wait to see if it will be the case under new leadership.

The signs are, at best, mixed.