Rose

Burnham really is a much more canny political operator than Starmer - and that poses a different set of challenges, maybe even threats, to progressive politics in the UK. Starmer very publicly fronted Shabana Mahmood's hardline immigration reforms, which attracted huge criticism amongst his own MPs and Guardian types. His own unpopularity and the perception that he was embracing politics outside of the Labour tradition, drove a wave of anger in the centre-left media and amongst soft-left supporters. Burnham, by comparison, has flown to a Commonwealth meeting and let Mahmood deliver her new proposals in Parliament, while it is subtly briefed that he got Mahmood to soften her lines. He's not fronted the proposals, so doesn't get labelled as a hardliner - but can then present the new proposals to Reform-curious voters as a sign that Labour is listening to their 'legitimate concerns.' If he gets it right, he mollifies the soft-left in his Party, while having a policy he can use to outflank the Tories and Reform on his right. It's very clever and well-handled, but it does mean, in effect, that Burnham has helped to stage manage immigration and asylum reforms that are far to the right of anything the Tories ever did. This is going to be a consistent theme, one feels: Burnham much more skilfully using his own popularity and likeability to push through right-wing policies that, in normal circumstances, would be loudly opposed by Labour's progressive-leaning voters. Imagine if the Tories had approved Jackdaw and these immigration reforms in the space of two weeks. The Guardian front-page would be on fire. Now? Pretty much crickets.