As Sir Keir Starmer’s premiership neared its end, an unassuming social club on the outskirts of a former mining town became the nerve centre for a reboot of the Labour Party.
The Stubshaw Cross Community Club at the north-east of Ashton-in-Makerfield was home to Andy Burnham’s by-election campaign at the start of the summer.
The choice of a traditional Labour club as his campaign headquarters illustrated what the then-mayor of Greater Manchester wished to achieve as he sought more than just the Makerfield seat.
It represented what would soon become his Labour Party getting back to its grassroots, reconnecting with voters who have traditionally been the core of its electoral coalition but abandoned it in their droves at the local elections just weeks before.
The club is a far cry from Islington’s now-lost Granita restaurant, where Tony Blair and Gordon Brown were said to have struck a gentleman’s agreement about leadership and set about rebuilding the Labour Party in their image in 1994.
“He does politics and he does symbolism very well”, Patrick Hurley, Labour MP for fellow North West constituency Southport, said of Mr Burnham’s campaign base.
“Running the most consequential by-election campaign for the past 100 years out of the hatch of a Labour club in Lancashire – that just speaks volumes, and it speaks volumes to where the Labour Party goes next”, he told The Independent.
“It speaks volumes to the fact that under Andy, we’ve got our groove back a little bit. The people who we were set up as a political party and a movement to advocate for and to work on behalf of, I think they realise that.”
Mr Burnham used his first week in office to announce a series of policies designed to offer “breathing space” for people and hospitality businesses, such as the Stubshaw club, from the cost of living crisis – a move which has unsurprisingly been welcomed by the Parliamentary Labour Party.
EXAMPLES OF THE POLICIES – BIZ RATES, BUSES ETC
Polling has suggested that the party is enjoying something of a ‘Burnham bounce’ as well, narrowing the gap with Reform to two points in More in Common’s latest figures.
The new prime minister, who has set out his stall to “rewire Britain” and move power out of the nation’s capital to its regions as he promises the most significant political change for almost half a century, has seen his own personal approval rating rise to plus 13 – higher than Sir Keir’s ever was.
“What Andy has put his finger on is that you can’t just manage a country from Westminster and Whitehall”, Mr Hurley said.
“You can’t just sign a bit of paper in your office in Downing Street and suddenly the country has changed for the better. It’s painstaking hard work from the grassroots up.”
The Stubshaw Cross club is the representation of those grassroots, according to Mr Hurley, and he believes Mr Burnham is far more comfortable among them – and understands them better – than his predecessor.
He said: “One of his campaign slogans in Makerfield was ‘Things will get better if we stick together’.
“It pinpointed to me the difference between Andy’s approach and the approach of Labour governments over the past 30 years.
“In ’97, the slogan was ‘Things can only get better’. There’s a sense there that things are going to get better, there is going to be this guiding hand of progress whether you like it or not, and all you need to do, the working class of the Midlands and the North, is sit back and progress will be done to you.
“Whereas Andy’s vision of things getting better is very much contingent on the collective, very much contingent on saying things will get better if we stick together.”
A northern cabinet and a northern outpost
“The London set have run it for too long”, Mr Burnham said of his party in an interview with The Observer during his by-election campaign.
He has since, perhaps pointedly, appointed a cabinet stacked with MPs from Greater Manchester, Merseyside and Yorkshire.
About Mr Burnham’s overtly northern reset of the Labour Party, Liverpool City Region mayor and close friend of the prime minister Steve Rotheram told The Independent earlier this month: “There’s no doubt about it – it’ll wind some people up.”
But the new leader is only utilising the “broad church” on which Labour prides itself, according to his former mayoral colleague.
“It doesn’t matter whether you’ve left school at 16 with few formal qualifications or you’ve been lucky enough to go to Oxbridge,” he said. “The party should attract everybody if they have the same values.
“Andy’s got Labour values. He wants the best for people and he wants the country to prosper, but he wants to take people with him and tackle some of the thorny issues.”
Central to his northern revolution is Number 10 North – the prime minister’s Manchester outpost, which he has said will be the “conduit” through which he redistributes power across the UK.
“The days of Whitehall resisting devolution are over, for good”, the prime minister said before his first meeting there on Friday, as he promised it would move influence away from Westminster and Whitehall “by putting more power into every postcode across the entire country.”
Hoping to benefit from its proximity to Liverpool is Mr Rotheram.
“I think its location is totemic for Andy for what he wants to do with that Manchesterism and growing that”, the mayor said. “But its function will be more important than its geography.
“That would be really helpful, if all of a sudden somewhere was recognised that you can go there and speak to government rather than always go down to SW1 and speak to government.”
The prime minister’s focus on the city he used to lead is not surprising. He also invited Donald Trump to his old stomping ground when it hosts the G20 next year – but does it mean that Manchester is well and truly now England’s second city?
West Midlands mayor Richard Parker rejects the suggestion that its rise could come at Birmingham’s expense.
“To be really clear, Andy Burnham is now the prime minister for the country, and he can only succeed if the country succeeds”, Mr Parker told The Independent.
“The best way I can do that is working with him to ensure the West Midlands succeeds, and that’s my priority. I’m really positive about devolution and the impact the prime minister has made so far in his days in office.
“I’m not going to get fixated on Number 10 North”, he added. “It’s there to deliver growth, investment, and prosperity for our regions, and I see that as a real positive.”
Mr Burnham’s advocacy for devolution and a commitment to a markedly different approach to his predecessor are the primary reasons for his rise to the country’s highest office, Mr Parker believes.
“Andy was pretty clear about that [a different focus from Sir Keir], and actually I think that projection, or that focus and recognition, is the reason why he’s become prime minister”, he said.
‘A Labour government with a bit of urgency’
In Mr Rotheram’s eyes, Mr Burnham’s political abilities, more so than his politics, contrast with the man who returned Labour to government in 2024.
The mayor was critical of the previous administration’s communication but he believes his friend can remedy that.
“Andy can connect”, he said. “Having Andy as the leader, we’ll be able therefore to use the messaging that we’ve previously failed to connect with, to try and ensure that we get on doorsteps and tell people how Labour can change people’s lives with Andy Burnham as the prime minister.”
For Mr Hurley, the approach in the first week’s administration underlines why those within the Labour Party are daring to get their hopes up – albeit cautiously.
“It’s a Labour government with a bit of urgency, which has been sadly missing in action over the past six to 12 months”, he said.
“My criticism of the previous prime minister, he came in with a lot of good intentions, but too often I think there wasn’t the sense of urgency that was needed.”
“Keir got off to a bad start. Some decisions out of Number 11 for the first six months weren’t the most optimal.
“But he also gave a speech in the Rose Garden at Downing Street in August 2024 – he’d been in for about six weeks – and said, ‘Things are going to get worse, and things aren’t as good as you want them to be.’ It took the wind out of people’s sails a little bit.
“Under Andy, there is a contingent sense of cautious optimism and hope here.
“It’s not blind, it’s not naive. It’s knowing full well that this is going to be an incredibly, incredibly difficult thing that we’re going to do for the country.
“But bit by bit, step by step, if we stick together, things will get better.”