Forget Manchester, Liverpool runs the Labour Party now

Good morning, readers. It's Ethan here, fresh from the Labour Party conference.

Between my chats with MPs, property developers, and trade unionists – I had a nagging thought. For all the talk of Burnhamism and Manchesterism, it felt like Liverpool, not Manchester, was the city Labour has in mind.

I turned to Jack Dulhanty, my personal authority on all things Burnham, who writes for the Mill, our sister paper in Manchester. This article, a special feature that will also be published in the Mill, is the product of our combined forces.

Enjoy.

They say the past is a different country, but this time last year was a different planet for Andy Burnham. The then-mayor and leadership hopeful who refused to accept he was a leadership hopeful – he previously said “you would have to wrench” him from the north west – fled his party’s 2025 conference in Liverpool after claiming it was gripped by a “climate of fear” that was preventing debate. 

In the weeks before, Burnham had been putting forward his ideas for the country in the pages of the New Statesman and the Financial Times — more devolution, not being “in hock” to the bond markets — and the Labour establishment ridiculed it. In the end, he was forced to back Keir Starmer as leader. When he finished laying out his vision at this year’s conference — a new age of re-industrialisation, the dawn of electoral reform, better relations with the EU, and a new social care service — he was met not with ridicule but eyes bleared with pride. No longer was he a pretender to the throne, “hopeless” on the economy and obsessed with the north. He was a beacon of hope. 

This week, Burnham has been framed as a homecoming king in the local press. Liam Thorp – the political editor of the Echo, who co-authored Head North with Burnham and Liverpool mayor Steve Rotheram – described “a new energy feeding off the lad born just up the road in Aintree.”

And the Prime Minister’s much-feted political philosophy, Manchesterism (originally branded ‘Burnhamism’), which hinges on devolving powers to local authorities and councils, has been spread like gospel through Labour heartlands, not least in Liverpool. In fact, milling around the party conference this week, it began to feel as though it’s Liverpool and not Manchester that Burnham believes can offer a guide to the UK at large. “The values of Liverpool are now the values of the UK.” he told a fringe meeting of conference delegates after his speech. “It is a huge statement about the people of this place, that in the end, having been cast out by the powers that be, everything has come full-circle.” 

Is ‘Liverpoolism’ what we have been actually talking about all along? Or did Andy Burnham, a people-pleaser par excellence, just happen to be there while talking about his vision? And, can Liverpool and others seize the opportunity of devolution like Manchester did?