{"id":296,"date":"2026-07-20T13:42:13","date_gmt":"2026-07-20T13:42:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usabusinesschronicle.com\/?p=296"},"modified":"2026-07-20T13:42:13","modified_gmt":"2026-07-20T13:42:13","slug":"andy-burnhams-challenge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usabusinesschronicle.com\/?p=296","title":{"rendered":"Andy Burnham\u2019s Challenge"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Sheffield, Scunthorpe, Port Talbot, Tyne, Teesside and Clyde. South Wales, central Scotland, Lancashire, and the mill towns across the Pennines. These were the ailing milling, mining, manufacturing, and shipbuilding communities and regions name-checked by Andy Burnham as he accepted the mantle of Labour Party leadership\u2014three days before becoming prime minister of the United Kingdom. Communities where successive governments had failed working people, and decades of British economic policy had ignored. The places where\u2014absent meaningful improvement in their lives\u2014voters otherwise turn to the nationalism and resentment-driven politics on offer from the Reform Party.<\/p>\n

Read more Trump\u2019s Election Integrity Speech Was Even Worse Than You Thought<\/a><\/p>\n

Burnham\u2019s rapid ascent to Britain\u2019s premiership has been remarkably smooth. In a country reeling from political instability, a surging populist right, and years of stagnant growth and living standards, Greater Manchester and its former mayor offer a ray of hope for reviving the economy and beating back the nationalist and anti-immigration Reform UK Party before Britain succumbs to the MAGA-style politics that have propelled Donald Trump to the presidency twice and put the Republican Party in charge of Congress, at least for now. Burnham promises a more consensual, place-before-party politics, built around the large-scale devolution of power and resources from Westminster to Britain\u2019s long-neglected cities and regions.<\/p>\n

The economic and political dynamics that elevated Trump remain a threat across democracies. Whether in France, Germany, Belgium, the U.S., or the U.K.\u2014the same type of hollowed-out industrial communities that Burnham called out in Britain are the wellspring of nationalist, anti-system sentiment that empowers the extremes. As living standards decline and economic security erodes, residents of once-vibrant heartland regions can become fertile ground for anti-democratic populists who stoke resentment, peddle nostalgia and ethnonationalism, and offer simple answers to long-term problems.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s, of course, a now familiar story on the continent. In Germany, the nationalist Alternative for Germany (AfD) is positioned to win power in key states. In the industrial swing states of the American Midwest and the rural and Rust Belt communities of France, support runs high for Trump and Marine Le Pen\u2019s far-right National Rally. These voters are frustrated and looking for change. When traditional parties fail to deliver, residents of struggling industrial and rural regions can turn to resentment politics, resurgent nationalism, and the far right\u2019s promise that a strongman can fix it all.<\/p>\n

Economic decline is one force fueling the growth of far-right parties. But our work with the Heartlands Transformation Network\u2014a transatlantic collaborative of leaders and economic change makers from 30 countries dedicated to closing geographic economic divides and reconnecting residents of rural and former industrial communities to economic opportunity suggests that when once-mighty communities turn an economic corner and begin to prosper again, hope and optimism return, resentments cool, and politics becomes less polarized\u2014and more normal.\u00a0<\/p>\n

As we wrote for the Brookings Institution, we have seen the political temperature cool alongside economic recovery in older industrial communities, including Grand Rapids, Michigan; Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; Duisburg, Germany; and Lyon and Strasbourg, France.\u00a0<\/p>\n

How do such communities find a path to economic regeneration and a healthier polity? Examples we have presented through the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) point to the importance of mayors and other local political, business, and civic leaders who know and engage their communities, helping them chart futures rooted in their own identities and assets.<\/p>\n

That is why hopes are high for Burnham. Among the many struggling communities of northern England, Greater Manchester stands out as an example of successful economic transformation. Often described as the birthplace of the Industrial Revolution, the city-region fell on hard times, as did many towns across the Midlands and the North. Today, it is a dynamic hub for technology, arts, and finance. The Greater Manchester mayoralty, established in 2015, and the University of Manchester have helped provide the institutional foundation for that resurgence. Burnham, 56, the first elected Greater Manchester Mayor entering office in 2017, did not create the transformation, but he has helped accelerate it by clearly communicating what he would do and why. As he told us at the Heartlands Transformation Network\u2019s first transatlantic symposium, progress starts small, by building trust. Tangible improvements to basic public services\u2014such as making the bus system work\u2014have helped persuade residents that government can deliver and can take on bigger challenges.<\/p>\n

Read more ICE Has Only Seemed To Be Quieter<\/a><\/p>\n

Alongside affordable, reliable local transportation, Burnham has focused on access to good homes, jobs, and training\u2014or, as British political analyst Sam Freedman, senior fellow at the Institute for Government, puts it, the \u201cfoundational infrastructure of people\u2019s everyday lives.\u201d During nearly a decade leading one of England\u2019s largest city-regions outside London, he has been a high-profile, accessible mayor, widely seen across the political spectrum as standing up for Greater Manchester\u2019s residents and businesses. During the COVID-19 pandemic, when Prime Minister Boris Johnson\u2019s government sought to impose a local lockdown, Burnham campaigned for compensation for families and businesses and was dubbed the \u201cKing of the North.\u201d The name\u2014and the style\u2014stuck.<\/p>\n

Effective local leaders also learn from\u2014and shamelessly \u201csteal\u201d good ideas from\u2014one another, as former Grand Rapids Mayor George Heartwell told us in another forum. During his 12 years in office, Heartwell helped guide the manufacturing city, long known as \u201cFurniture City,\u201d through a broader regional renaissance and helped earn it recognition as one of America\u2019s greenest midsize cities. The traditionally Republican region has since rejected some of the most extreme MAGA candidates while electing a Democrat to Congress (Representative Hillary Scholten) for the first time in 50 years, and supporting a Democrat for Governor (Gretchen Whitmer in 2018 and 2022) for the first time in over 30 years.<\/p>\n

International learning networks that connect leaders from similarly situated coal, steel, chemical, heavy-manufacturing, and milling communities have been an important part of Greater Manchester\u2019s success. At a recent Bennett Institute conference, Burnham cited a network organized by former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg as a political model, through which he met former Pittsburgh Mayor Bill Peduto. Peduto helped along Pittsburgh\u2019s decades-long transition from steel capital to a center of AI, data science, robotics, automation, and health care, offering lessons for Manchester and other industrial cities. The network also helped lay the groundwork for trade missions and agreements linking Greater Manchester with Boston, Austin, Dublin, Osaka, and Germany\u2019s Ruhr region.<\/p>\n

That economic transformation is possible\u2014even in former industrial heartlands hit hard by globalization and technological change\u2014offers hope not only for Burnham and Britain but for leaders across democracies who want to deliver a better life for their communities and head off the political extremes.<\/p>\n

But it will not be easy. Residents of former mill, mining, and manufacturing communities across Britain have been promised \u201cbig change\u201d before: through Brexit, Boris Johnson\u2019s pledge to \u201clevel up\u201d the Midlands and the North, and Labour\u2019s sweeping 2024 mandate after 14 years of Conservative rule, austerity, and political dysfunction. Those unfulfilled promises have only deepened voter anger and cynicism\u2014and intensified the search for someone to blame, whether the European Union or immigration. That discontent has long underpinned the appeal of Nigel Farage and his succession of right-wing populist parties. Reform UK, the latest iteration, has frequently led national polls since 2025.<\/p>\n

So far, Burnham, who hails from a Catholic working-class background, has hit the right notes. On July 17, Labour confirmed him as its new leader; on July 20, King Charles III formally appointed him prime minister. His rise has happened gradually and then suddenly. Less than a month ago, he returned to Parliament after winning the Makerfield by-election, in a post-industrial constituency in Greater Manchester near his family home. Asked whether the seat was a \u201cstepping-stone,\u201d Burnham called it a \u201ctouchstone\u201d: a test of whether he can deliver tangible improvements for Makerfield and communities like it across the country.<\/p>\n

That is the common test across democracies: Can leaders deliver and bring hope to heartlands like Greater Manchester? Burnham has made that promise, but fulfilling it will be far from straightforward, and voters\u2019 patience is running short. Time will tell\u2014but there is not much of it.<\/p>\n

Read more Trump\u2019s Election Integrity Dud<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Andy Burnham has built his politics around Britain\u2019s neglected industrial communities. 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