Andy Burnham MP, promised to give the UK a “new direction” with the biggest transfer of power out of Whitehall in modern times.
The prospective prime minister promised to end “politics as usual” to rescue a country which is “stuck in a rut”.
In his first major speech since Sir Keir Starmer announced he would be leaving Downing Street, Mr Burnham pledged to pull people together in the “broadest possible coalition” to revive hope across the country.
Mr Burnham said: “What hope can we have that it will be different this time? That is the question I would be asking if I was a voter right now.
“It is the one I want to answer as clearly as I can today, and in doing so give the new direction the country is looking for after 10 years of political turbulence since Brexit and 20 years of falling living standards since the 2008 financial crash.”
The Makerfield MP, who gave up being mayor of Greater Manchester to return to Parliament in a by-election earlier this month, said: “Westminster has not been working for people and it has not been working for a very long time. In fact, it is broken.
“And as a result, the country isn’t where it should be. It is stuck in a rut, and clearly we can’t go on like this.”
In Westminster, Mr Burnham said he would reach out to other parties to create a “greater sense of unity” in place of the “fragmented, disjointed” political environment he said he had found on his return to Parliament.
And he pledged to create a “No10 North” based in Manchester to act as “the nerve centre of a rewired Britain”, charged with making power flow to all the UK’s nations and regions.
Drawing inspiration from Germany, he said No10 North would be “given a mission to strive for equivalent living conditions in all parts of Britain”.
The department would also have three “clear tasks” of increasing public ownership of essential utilities such as water, energy and housing; reindustrialisation; and regeneration.
Picture: Radio NewsHub, provider of national news to Quality Radio.
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Jonathan Carr-West, Chief Executive, LGIU, said: “Andy Burnham’s speech today, (Monday 29 June 2026) was the most ambitious statement on devolution we have seen from a senior politician in a generation.
At LGIU (Local Government Information Unit), we have always argued that national success has local foundations, and that democratic control, economic growth and excellence in public services cannot be achieved by working from the top down, only nurtured from the bottom up. Burnham appears to understand this based on his remarks this morning.
The vision of a rewired Britain, with power genuinely shifted to places and communities, is one we have been making the case for – alongside our LGIU councils – since our Connected Localism work over a decade ago.
But vision requires a vehicle. We have seen ambitious visions before, and we have seen many governments come unstuck because of their failure to empower councils sufficiently.
Local government is the operational front line of the state, and right now it is hollowed out and close to collapse. Number 10 North, reindustrialisation, house building: none of this works without councils that have the capacity to deliver it.
We still need an effective covenant between national and local government that addresses the systemic pressures faced by councils, that provides a sustainable financial settlement and that links “good growth” to locally led approaches to public service reform and democratic renewal.”
