Andy Burnham rates pub snacks on Instagram and makes it look like statesmanship, but on Europe he's said almost nothing. A month in, he's reshuffled the Foreign Office, sent Ed Miliband to a bigger role abroad, and opened the door to North Sea drilling, all while "Burnhamism" stays firmly focused on cheaper buses and listening tours at home. Ros Taylor asks whether a PM this good at seeming relatable can handle the crises still to come.
“When did you last buy a packet of pork scratchings in a pub?” Andy Burnham asked his new chancellor, John Healey, in an Instagram reel posted shortly after he became PM. “Two weeks ago,” replied Healey, a man of the people. They went on to rate various pub snacks, declaring a packet of salt and vinegar crisps the winner and toasting the session with a pint. The video has been reposted 563 times so far – a relatively impressive figure for a post by a mainstream politician.
You’ll search for a long time before you find a packet of pork scratchings (deep-fried crunchy pork rind, for non-British readers) in a Brussels bar. And that is part of the point. Burnham’s social media game is not about projecting UK power abroad or emphasising the PM’s statesmanship. It is about making him look relatable. An old polling question asks whether you would want to have a drink with a politician. Burnham is taking it literally. Since he moved into Number 10 on 20 July 2026, he has announced a series of easily comprehensible policies, such as cutting bus fares, supporting pubs and getting homeless people off the streets for Christmas. Apart from a quick visit to Ukraine, high politics – defence, foreign affairs, the climate crisis – can wait.
What do we know about the approach the new administration will take towards the EU? “Very little, is the extremely short answer to that,” says Joel Reland, a senior research fellow at the think-tank UK in a Changing Europe, “because he has said almost zero about it.” What we can infer is that the Burnham administration will devote less time on cultivating EU leaders than Starmer’s did. The unpopular previous PM was criticised for spending too much time at foreign summits. Burnham is not going to make the same mistake. His ‘big idea’ is devolution to Britain’s regions to stimulate growth, not improving the terms on which Britain trades with its neighbours. The ‘Manchesterism’ he embraces looks to northern England, not overseas, even if it draws some inspiration from Austin, Texas, and Osaka in Japan.
The feeling is mutual. “I can’t really see the UK relationship being a top priority for the EU, but maybe that will match the urgency of the Burnham government,” says Reland, predicting an administration that is “going to keep things ticking over, progressing where we can.”
So far there is no date or location for the postponed UK-EU summit, which was to have taken place in July. If, as hoped, it happens before the end of the year, it will probably be in Ireland, which holds the presidency of the Council of the EU. The intention is to announce closer alignment on phytosanitary regulations, emissions trading and a potential youth mobility deal – which has stalled on the issues of quotas and the UK’s high fees for international students. Burnham is reported to be prepared to concede on the fees, but progress is extremely slow.
Ed Miliband moves to the Foreign Office
Burnham shook up the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO), installing Ed Miliband as foreign secretary and replacing the minister for EU relations, Nick Thomas-Symonds, with Hamish Falconer, a former diplomat. The department has experienced a fairly brutal round of redundancies and has lacked leadership and direction, with deep cuts to foreign aid. Miliband is expected to try to rebuild the UK’s aid network, but until the budget at the end of October it is unclear how much he will be able to afford.
Reland expects Miliband to take a more visible role abroad, going to the kinds of events that Starmer previously attended himself. “He would like to be more personally involved in the EU brief, and he’s going to be a more active foreign secretary.
“Nick Thomas-Symonds was a very popular man in Brussels and was an important figure in the improvement in the mood music, but there is an argument that he was almost too nice, and perhaps you need to be a bit more tough and hard-headed. Were Miliband to be involved it might bring a little more political oomph into the discussions. More high-level presence would help.”
The signals on net zero and environmental policy are mixed. Miliband was an effective net zero secretary and his move to the FCDO will make it easier for the government to allow drilling in the Rosebank and Jackdaw oilfields in the North Sea. There is fierce debate in the UK about whether this is a vital step for energy independence, regrettable but pragmatic, or unconscionable – particularly given the record temperatures and drought Britain has suffered this summer. The consultation has just ended and a decision is expected in early September, with the government tipped to open up drilling in one field but not the other. Burnham visited a town affected by wildfires, but he has not announced any significant climate adaptation policies, apart from urging people not to light unnecessary fires.
The new net zero secretary, Miatta Fahnbulleh, is a Miliband protégé who is keen on renewables but also attuned to the need to bring down the cost of living. Inflation rose again in August because of rising fuel prices.
What is Burnhamism?
A month into his premiership, Burnham’s priorities are beginning to emerge. He is keen to avoid being pulled into the ‘Westminster bubble’ that he quit after Labour’s defeat in 2010, touring the country to listen to people’s concerns and alive to the visible problems – illegal dumping, homelessness, abandoned pubs – that speak to community decline and the deterioration of local government. He has promised to address the crisis in social care and delegate more money to local politicians.
Yvette Cooper, the former foreign secretary, has contrasted Burnham’s approach with Starmer’s. “I think Keir’s style of leadership was ‘bring me solutions, not problems’. And I’m not sure you can do that in politics,” she told the Political Currency podcast. “The thing you see with Andy is ‘hang on, bring me the problems. I want to talk to you about the problems. I want to engage … and I want us to work together in solving them.’”
The first English literature graduate ever to become prime minister, Burnham’s communication skills are undoubted. What is less clear is whether his diagnosis of Britain’s problems – and the changes he wants to make – are substantial enough to transform a country that, like most of the rest of Europe, is drifting towards the far right. Burnham is attuned to public opinion and the value of an easy-to-grasp giveaway, but tackling the problems that trouble individuals now will not necessarily address the bigger challenges facing Britain when it grapples with the impact of AI, Russian hybrid warfare and an unprecedented El Niño.
Labour’s poll ratings have improved, but Reform continues to attract a quarter of the vote and a party even further to the right, Restore Britain, is picking up support too. The number of migrants crossing the Channel in small boats is down this year, but they have started landing in much bigger dinghies. And Burnham has yet to deal with a major crisis. When that arrives, the public will demand more than matey chat about pub snacks.
The views and opinions in this article do not necessarily reflect those of the Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung European Union | Global Dialogue.
