Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham Faces Growing Unrest From Labour Heavyweights

Andy Burnham arrived in Liverpool promising to put “hope in every heart” as he prepared for his first Labour Party conference as Prime Minister and leader, with tensions rising among some of the party’s most senior figures.

Standing outside the conference venue beneath Labour’s “Hope Again” slogan, a defiant Mr Burnham addressed reporters with his hands resting on his hips. He wore his familiar all-black “working man” look from Private White VC: £295 jeans, an £80 T-shirt, a £695 suede Harrington jacket and £110 low-top Adidas Topanga trainers.

He said Britain needed a fresh start after a decade marked by “too much drift and too much division” since the Brexit vote, insisting that the country must now “draw a line under that”.

Restating his promise to deliver “good growth in every postcode”, Mr Burnham said the conference would mark a major turning point for the Government and the country.

His aim, he said, was to give people renewed confidence that their circumstances could improve and that a better quality of life was within reach.

Mr Burnham described reaching his first Labour conference as both Prime Minister and party leader as a deeply personal moment. “My grandad drove a lorry for Tate & Lyle up and down these docks,” he said. “I wonder what he would make of this right now.”

The lifelong Everton supporter also joked about the city’s football divide, saying he normally came to Liverpool on a Saturday to back the Blues but that “we’re all supporting the Reds today, aren’t we?”

As Labour supporters gathered to welcome him, his wife Marie-France van Heel stood nearby. She recently left her job to support her husband in his new position and take on the public duties associated with being the Prime Minister’s wife.

Ms van Heel opted for a more understated style than the designer outfit she wore when Mr Burnham entered Downing Street, including a much-criticised £850 Victoria Beckham dress. In Liverpool, she chose a simple burgundy faux-leather midi skirt from Next, priced at £46, with matching kitten heels, a shoulder bag and a white shirt.

Known as Frankie, Ms van Heel has been with Mr Burnham since the pair met at Cambridge. She recently stepped down from her marketing role so she could support his premiership and accompany him on official engagements abroad.

Earlier in the week, she joined a lunch hosted by US First Lady Melania Trump while the Prime Minister made his first official visit to Donald Trump.

She has also met Olena Zelenska, the wife of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, and Diana Carney, the wife of Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, during talks held alongside the UN General Assembly in New York.

The couple travelled to Liverpool from their home in Warrington, where Mr Burnham had earlier been photographed out for a run.

The Prime Minister is expected to need plenty of stamina during the conference as he faces mounting criticism from senior Labour figures, amid public disagreements and increasingly pointed exchanges within the party.

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Peter Kyle, a former Business Secretary and supporter of Wes Streeting, accused the Government of failing to do enough to stimulate economic growth. Former Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner, meanwhile, criticised Home Office proposals that would extend the period before overseas care workers could qualify for settlement in Britain.

Speaking to the BBC, Mr Kyle argued that ministers should consider immediate measures to strengthen the economy, including slowing the introduction of some new employment rights.

“We might need to look and have honest conversations with unions about how we sequence some of the rights going forward to make sure that we get growth into the economy in the shorter term,” he said.

Ms Rayner, now Communities Secretary, said plans to increase the route to permanent residency from five years to 15 for overseas social care workers would “change the goalposts”. She also objected to the proposal being applied retrospectively to everyone who had arrived in the UK since 2021.

She has previously called Shabana Mahmood’s migration proposals, which have been welcomed by others on the right of the party, ‘un-British’.

Ms Rayner’s increasingly vocal opposition, which is supported by others within the party and the growing unrest at the Government’s economic plans – or lack of them – ahead of next month’s Budget could cause a headache for the PM, curtailing his honeymoon period.

The backbiting continued when Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy hit back at Mr Kyle, suggesting Mr Burnham was moving faster than Sir Keir Starmer did as Prime Minister.

She told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme Mr Burnham was ‘impatient for change, and he thinks big about the sort of change that the country needs’.

With the PM also ruling out an early snap election in pre-conference interviews, saying he wanted to ‘knock dead’ rumours of one, party chair Bridget Phillipson also sounded a note of caution about winning the next election despite Labour’s initial poll boost since Sir Keir Starmer was toppled.

Speaking to the Press Association today, she acknowledged the PM’s role in boosting polls as thanks to his ‘real sense of connection’ but said the party recognised it had a ‘massive fight on our hands with Reform, with the Tories’.

As polling showed a snap election would not give any party a majority but Labour the largest share with Reform and the Tories neck and neck, she said:

‘We’ve got a big fight on our hands come the next election and I don’t underestimate that challenge for one second, but there’s a real sense of purpose and energy as conference gets underway.’

Commenting that ‘the only poll that will matter is the one that happens on election day in 2029’, she added: ‘What we have seen with Andy Burnham is a real sense of connection with the public, taking things to the next level. That hope, that optimism, that sense that Britain’s best days lie ahead of us.’