Andy Burnham to be confirmed as Labour leader

Labour’s newest MP, Andy Burnham, will be confirmed as the next leader of the Labour Party this afternoon, with the announcement expected to come shortly after midday.

The confirmation comes after a week-long nomination period, in which Burnham faced no serious contenders (although Labour backbencher Catherine West was nominated by Neil Coyle).

Burnham won’t immediately become prime minister – this will happen on Monday, after Sir Keir Starmer meets King Charles III to tender his resignation. Then, Burnham will arrive at Buckingham Palace to be first greeted by the King’s Private Secretary.

He will be taken into the Palace and meet the King, who will ask him to form an administration. Precedent dictates that Burnham will arrive in his own vehicle to leave as prime minister in the prime ministerial car, to head to Downing Street. There, Burnham will be expected to make his first speech as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.

What comes next will be the Cabinet announcements, which are expected to come on Monday. There has been much speculation around who the chancellor of the exchequer will be, with home secretary Shabana Mahmood now expected to take that role.

On Tuesday, the junior ministerial appointments will be announced, and the process could continue later into the week.

Then Burnham’s team will need to figure out what his first 100 days in the job will look like: what he will prioritise and what his stance on existing policies will be.

He has already made clear that the economy will be his central focus – and so far, Burnham has refused to rule out a wealth tax. His devolution speech set out his intention to decentralise power from Westminster, and Burnham plans to create a No. 10 North in Manchester as part of that.

Burnham only made his return to Westminster last month, sweeping to victory in the Makerfield by-election. It was an unprecedented by-election in the sense that Labour government figures were campaigning for a man who had made it clear he planned to oust their leader, and it was an odd series of events that led to it taking place.

After disastrous results in the May elections across English councils, and in both the Senedd and Holyrood, Sir Keir Starmer was urged to resign.

The previous incumbent, Josh Simons, announced he would quit as an MP to pave the way for Burnham (the then-mayor of Greater Manchester) to return to Westminster, as he was deemed the only candidate who could challenge Starmer and unite the Labour party. The next few months will reveal whether this is indeed the case.