Burnham’s hope campaign ends where the Cabinet begins

On Monday, the seventh British prime minister in a decade assumed office. Andy Burnham was welcomed to Downing Street by a cheerful crowd of political allies, including former Labour lawmaker Josh Simons, who had given up his seat in the House of Commons to trigger a by-election, enabling Burnham to return to national politics and, ultimately, become prime minister.

Burnham’s message to the public has revolved around the notion of “hope” in politics, really little more than a simple slogan initially popularized by Green Party leader Zack Polanski. That lawmakers said to represent the Labour Party’s “soft left,” such as Clive Lewis and John McDonnell, promoted Burnham over the outgoing prime minister, Keir Starmer, seems to have raised hopes among a segment of the electorate that had all but given in to despair.

Is this hope well founded, though? Cynics would argue that it is not, citing substantial evidence. Certainly, the rhetoric has been focused on change, but that change is likely to be rhetorical alone. In terms of economic, domestic and foreign policy, Burnham’s government appears to offer only superficial improvements, judging by his Cabinet appointments.

One appointment that particularly surprised many observers was that of former Defense Secretary John Healey as chancellor of the exchequer. Not long ago, Healey resigned from the government over the Treasury’s refusal to provide the military with funding that he insisted it was entitled to receive.

Healey’s former position as defense secretary is now occupied by former Health Secretary Wes Streeting, whose ambition has long been to become prime minister himself. His close relationship with the disgraced former British ambassador to the United States, Peter Mandelson, was doubtless regrettable, to say the least, and Streeting did everything he could to convince the public that, in his private conversations with Mandelson, he had always sought to do the right thing – for instance, by criticizing government inaction over Gaza. He eventually fell out with Starmer as well and later concluded that his only path to remaining politically relevant was to endorse Burnham for the Labour Party leadership.

Streeting’s connections to Labour Together, the principal think tank representing the Labour Party’s right wing, whose director was at one point none other than Simons, have raised doubts, not hope, about what lies ahead for Britain’s “national security.”

On his first day in office, Burnham reportedly decided to maintain Starmer’s policy of allowing the U.S. to use British bases in its illegal war with Iran. Perhaps this is how Streeting will contribute to the new government, in addition to reaffirming his commitment to increasing defense spending in response to the “Russian threat.” He will certainly encounter no obstacle to this ambitious agenda when he seeks Healey’s cooperation. Of course, Burnham’s earlier pledge to “end 40 years of neoliberalism” will not apply here. Under this arrangement, not even an overt form of military Keynesianism would be surprising.

Reform U.K.’s favorite Labour politician, Shabana Mahmood, retained her position as home secretary under Burnham’s premiership, reiterating her determination to “restore control over the immigration system” and “protect … national security and keep the public safe.” As for keeping the public safe, she had already made Palestine Action a personal target under Starmer, by appealing the High Court’s earlier decision in the judicial review of the group’s proscription. The actual impact on domestic policy of Burnham’s intentionally vague recent comments on Gaza, in which he supposedly admitted that his party “didn’t get it right” and that “the response has too often not been good enough,” may very well turn out to be null.

The common characteristic of all these appointments is that they all pursue essentially the same concrete policies as their predecessors, but with better public relations. For instance, they know how to express sympathy for the suffering in Gaza, if only in abstract terms. Their sympathy for Ukraine, on the other hand, is tangible, and they take “the Russian threat” rather seriously.

The newly appointed foreign secretary, Ed Miliband, pledged to “stand shoulder to shoulder with the people of Ukraine against Russia’s illegal invasion,” while failing to clarify whether what he referred to as “the terrible suffering of the people of Gaza” was the result of another illegal act – the gravest of them all. Yet this did not protect him from the wrath of those who could not even stand expressions of sympathy for the suffering of perceived subhumans, however hollow those expressions may actually be.

Chief foreign affairs commentator at the Telegraph, David Blair, argued that “there’s no worse choice for foreign secretary than Ed Miliband.” Then came a banal attack by Jake Wallis Simons, who claimed that “the sinister, Israelophobic Left stands to benefit from Ed Miliband as Foreign Secretary.”

To his credit, Miliband at least adhered to the old consensus when he backed recognition of the State of Palestine. “His opposition to military action in Syria,” cited among his sins by Blair, could also be construed as a hint that he may refuse to blindly follow U.S. President Donald Trump’s orders. This is presumably why the Telegraph editor Tom Diver and correspondent Connor Stringer reported that the “White House is concerned over Miliband as Foreign Secretary.” It is hard to imagine Miliband actually standing up to Trump in any meaningful way, but even the prospect of him showing some national self-respect seems to scare the “conservatives” of Britain.