Andy Burnham’s “socialist” style may be red flag for Trump

When President Donald Trump was asked about Andy Burnham last month, the man replacing Keir Starmer as Britain’s prime minister, he said he knew little.

“I see that he was, I guess, the mayor of a town,” Trump said. “I hear he’s extremely liberal, extremely, so that means he probably won’t open up the North Sea” to more oil drilling, he added, referring to an issue that he has claimed was key to Starmer’s downfall after just two years in office.

Trump’s description of Burnham signaled that the new prime minister may face an even tougher task than his predecessor in winning over Trump, given the president’s recent attacks on members of the Democratic Party’s ascendant left as “communists.”

But is Burnham, who has described himself as a business-friendly leader, anything like the “communists” Trump has railed against? Or is he just a European leader?

The former mayor of Greater Manchester is taking over from Starmer as prime minister on Monday after becoming leader of the U.K.’s governing Labour Party on Friday. He was the only contender in the center-left party’s leadership contest to replace Starmer after winning a special election for a seat in Parliament a month ago.

In a speech on Friday, Burnham expressed his pro-business stance as he promised “the most significant change moment in our politics for 40 years.”

But though many view him as more charismatic than Starmer, he will inherit Starmer’s economic and political challenges, including a sluggish economy and a cost-of-living crisis.

He has revealed little detail about his policy priorities, but his vision for Britain is based on lessons learned from overseeing Manchester’s rapid economic rise. That vision—dubbed “Manchesterism”—is a business-friendly socialism that aims to harness private and public money to invest in areas like transport, housing and infrastructure.

One key priority he outlined in Friday’s speech is his plan to give greater autonomy to local leaders in cities and regions. He has also pledged to create new industrial jobs and better educational opportunities, and wants “greater public control” of the U.K.’s privatized water and energy utilities.

How Socialist Is Burnham?

That’s a “very broad” term that can make a politician sound “anti-capitalist” in the sense of “aiming to abolish private property, markets, nationalize the economy and so on, Sheri Berman, a professor of political science at Barnard College, told Newsweek.

“That is not what Burnham aims to do nor the Labour Party, more generally,” she said.

She said Burnham’s platform is closer to the European social democratic tradition, with stronger public services, expanded public housing and tighter public control over essential services.

“There is nothing in Burnham’s proposed policies that is not ‘social democratic,’” Berman said.

She noted that his agenda includes strengthening the welfare and social safety net, particularly public housing and the National Health Service.

In Friday’s speech, Burnham said Britain had taken “a series of wrong turns in the 1980s” when “political power was centralized and economic power privatized.”

Wanting the government to have greater control of water and energy utilities “may sound suspicious to American ears but it is not in Europe,” Berman said, adding that Britain had far more public control of utilities and energy before former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher’s privatization drive in the 1980s.

Burnham’s approach is therefore “not a radical departure so much as a return to an earlier model,” she said.

Still, Burnham will move the Labour Party further to the left, James D. Boys, senior research fellow at the Centre on US Politics at University College London, told Newsweek.

He “has made no secret of his wish to revert back to the policies of the pre-Thatcher era, including the re-nationalization of utility companies, a large-scale public house-building initiative not seen since the 1960s, to be paid for by wide-ranging tax increases,” Boys said.

“Much like the democratic socialists in the United States, the Labour Party under Andy Burnham looks to continue the rejection of the centrist, Third Way policies that proved so electorally successful in the 1990s, abandoning the approach adopted by Bill Clinton and Tony Blair, respectively.”

But David Bailey, an associate professor in politics at the University of Birmingham, U.K., noted that Burnham was “explicit that he would be a ‘pro-business’ prime minister” and also seems to “broadly support the anti-immigration policies that have been developing under the Starmer government.”

During his recent special-election campaign, Burnham said net migration “needs to fall further.”

Bailey told Newsweek that much of the promise of change that Burnham offers “might be best considered a shift in tone, without a massive shift in policies and ideology.”

Burnham Plans to Be ‘Upfront’

Burnham has already acknowledged the challenges he may face when dealing with Trump, though he has suggested his personality could help keep the relationship from becoming rocky.

In a recent interview, he said he planned to be “upfront” with Trump and “meet him where he’s at.”

“I like to think I’ve got some personality myself and I’ll just, you know, I’ll deal with him very upfront in the same way,” he said.

Trump may welcome the change in prime minister, given his recent criticism of Starmer, Bailey said.

“Especially if Burnham proves to be popular as a new British prime minister,” he said, pointed to Trump’s cordial relationship with New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, a democratic socialist who Trump had maligned as a “communist” during his mayoral campaign.

“We have seen with Trump’s approach to Zohran Mamdani how Trump appears to welcome popularity, sometimes prioritizing that over ideological differences,” Bailey said. “If Burnham is popular, continues with an anti-immigration stance, and makes only soft criticism of Britain’s record on Gaza, then it is entirely possible that Trump would not be too hostile towards him.”

But he said that if some of Burnham’s “more left-leaning stances become more firm and concrete,” Trump may become adversarial.

For Boys, Burnham’s policy stances will likely “place him at increasing odds with the Trump administration.”

Burnham will inherit several ongoing conflicts “that defy easy solutions and demand diplomatic skills that he has yet to master,” he said. He expects Burnham to be critical of Israeli policy on Gaza and remain reluctant to commit British forces in the Iran war.

While Starmer tried to position himself as a “Trump whisperer,” Boys argues that Burnham is less likely to spend political capital cultivating a relationship with the president.

He is “unlikely to attempt any form of rapprochement with the White House, undoubtedly counting the days until the end of the Trump administration and hoping for Democratic victories in the mid-terms, as he pivots to a closer relationship with the EU,” Boys said.

Contact Newsweek editors on this story: Ben Kelly and Dave Siminoff.