For years, Labour MPs have loyally trotted out the red lines: that there will be no return to the single market, customs union or, whisper it, to EU membership. Being generous, the rationale for this Ming vase-style method stemmed from a fear of handing Reform UK a gift in Leave-voting seats.

But all along the fear was trained on the wrong target. Labour isn’t losing these seats because Reform UK is winning over Labour voters, it’s losing them because the party’s own 2024 coalition has scattered, to the Greens, Lib Dems, SNP, Plaid Cymru, and transformed into non-voters, with Reform UK reaping the rewards and coming through the middle. Being cautious on Europe exacerbates precisely this danger.

READ MORE: https://labourlist.org/2026/09/labour-seats-conservatives-targeting-next-election/

In Best for Britain’s 13,433-person YouGov MRP, a manifesto pledge to rejoin the EU doubled Labour’s vote share from 18 percent to 37 percent, putting it 11 points clear of Reform UK, while Reform UK’s vote share didn’t move. A bolder offer on Europe doesn’t drive anyone into the right’s arms, but locks Farage out of Downing Street, and makes Labour the largest party with 321 seats, just shy of the 326 needed for an outright majority. Under this scenario there are a further 43 seats where Labour is either tied with Reform UK or trailing by four points or fewer. Winning those, takes Labour’s ceiling to 369, comfortably over the line. That’s the difference between a Burnham coalition and a Burnham majority.

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Those 43 seats include constituencies like Erewash, where an EU membership offer narrows the gap between Labour and Reform UK to just one percent. It’s Mike Tapp’s Dover and Deal where he’d be just three percent behind the Reform UK candidate, as well as Scottish seats like Inverclyde and Renfrewshire West and Stirling and Strathallan where the gap would close on the SNP to less than three percent. Every Labour MP who stays silent out on EU membership out of fear of Farage should look at the list of 43 seats. Several of their colleagues who would be set to gain the most from a bolder line are the ones most nervous about it.

Halfway house manifesto pledges, like the customs union and single market, puts Labour on just 256 seats, on central estimates, with a messy three-party coalition required to take power. A manifesto commitment on the current approach of generic ‘closer relations’ leaves the party with just 136 seats and a Farage-led coalition that should frighten us all.

Indeed, our poll found that the single market and customs union were the least popular of all the options tested, less popular even than the status quo. Voters respond to a clear, simple offer, not a technocratic compromise that is easy to attack on sovereignty grounds. As a rule-taker, not a rule-maker, we’d be the only G7 country in the single market with no say over the regulations British business would abide by, and with no British judges on EU courts arbitrating on trade disputes. It’s unsurprising that voters aren’t keen and instead have a strong preference for membership and the rule-making rights that give us more, not less, sovereignty, and accompany the obligations.

MPs rarely attend these debates en masse, but now Andy Burnham has opened the door to EU membership, this session offers a chance for our political class to catch up with where voters have long been. Labour can lose cautiously or win boldly. Pulling back from Europe to keep Reform UK out is the surest way to let Farage in.

It’s time to go big, or go home.

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The post ‘Playing it safe on Europe is the riskiest thing Labour can do’ appeared first on LabourList.

Today, now that Britain’s industrial era seems to fade ever further into memory, it’s easy to imagine Britain’s industrial communities and rural life as belonging to entirely different worlds. Our modern politics has a tendency to present the countryside as something culturally apart from the labour tradition, pigeonholed as belonging predominantly to the major urban manufacturing centres like Manchester, Sheffield, Glasgow or London. Yet anyone who grew up in the Northumberland coalfields can tell you that towns and villages like ours hold an important part in the rich history of working-class life.

Of course, the working-class countryside is home to more than our industrial history alone. As someone born and bred in Ashington, the community is rightly proud to be the birthplace of one of the most significant figures of post-war Britain – Jack Charlton. The World Cup winner, Leeds United legend, and the manager who revolutionised Irish football never forgot his roots. But before that, before success and stardom came his way, Jack began life as the son of an Ashington miner, and his working-class roots never abated. Jack fiercely supported Harold Wilson’s Labour, drafting a pamphlet for the Party’s 1970 election campaign. A decade and a half later during the miners’ strike Jack Charlton would quietly and without seeking any kudos lend his Range Rover to flying pickets from the National Union of Mineworkers during their campaign to save the coal mining industry across Britain. His loyalty to the labour movement and to his community was constant, and this honesty and commitment should be held up as a model for all of us in the Labour movement. 

READ MORE: ‘Football doesn’t care about the Oxbridge tech corridor’

At the same time, millions across Britain also knew Jack as one of the country’s best-loved champions of countryside life. In the late 1980s, Jack Charlton’s Game attracted immense audiences as Jack travelled the country to introduce modern, urban viewers to fishing, rabbiting, rough shooting, wildfowling and to a way of life conditioned to the cycles and seasons of rural Britain. It was a programme about wildlife and conservation, about local traditions, about the turning of the year, and about ordinary people taking some pleasure in the ground beneath them. 

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Britain’s working-class culture came both from the cities and from the towns and villages nestled between farmland, woodland, rivers and moors. Our communities worked hard, but they also understood the value of time outdoors. Football was usually the great passion, but far from the only one. Pit villages supported brass bands, pigeon racing clubs, whippet racing, allotments, and fishing clubs. Many families rabbited, ferreted, rough shot or went wildfowling, either as a hobby or to supplement the family table. 

Looking back, Jack Charlton’s Game now feels like a window into a Britain that has largely disappeared from public life. We have started to forget that Britain’s industrial communities and rural traditions belong together in the history of our class and our movement. If Labour forgets that many of its traditional heartlands were communities with deep connections to the countryside, we risk presenting rural Britain as someone else’s world.

It is absolutely right that the people of Ashington honoured Jack with a permanent statue in Hirst Park following a campaign led by my son Liam who was then a Labour Councillor. Before the countryside became another front in Britain’s culture wars, it was just a fact of life for communities like mine. As Labour thinks about rebuilding relationships across every part of Britain, it would do well to meditate on the life (and politics) of men like Jack Charlton.

The sooner we remember that our rural traditions hold just as much significance in the life of our movement as those of major towns and cities, the better we’ll be for it. Rebuilding that relationship will not be done through gestures or through language borrowed from somebody else’s argument. It will be done by treating rural Britain as a place with wages, housing costs, bus routes and public services, and by remembering that the people who live there have always been our people too.

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The result, especially Labour’s 12-point margin of victory, will be a setback for the Greens after their concerted campaign to win Keir Starmer’s former constituency – and suggests Labour can win back voters who had been tempted away from the party by challengers on both sides of the political spectrum.

Before votes had even been counted, More in Common’s Luke Tryl noted that, since Burnham became leader, increasing numbers of voters see Labour as the main party on the left again – a perspective that will be crucial in battles with Reform across the country.

Combined with Burnham’s own by-election in Makerfield, Labour is truly back as an electable force again. But the context of this result matters. Holborn and St Pancras has long been a safe Labour seat – yet the party’s majority has fallen from over 30,000 to a little over 3,000 in the span of less than a decade.

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The result is no doubt a missed opportunity for the Greens. Their rise in the polls, encapsulated by the Gorton and Denton by-election, has hit the buffers in the wake of the controversial ‘Zionism is racism’ motion – and Polanski now faces his own internal battles around his leadership.

However, it would be a mistake to write off the Greens. The 13-point swing to the party last night would be enough for Labour to lose seats like Huddersfield, Bristol South, Brighton Kemptown and Sheffield Central, while pushing others like Leeds Central and Headingley and Manchester Rusholme on a knife-edge. A result less close than some feared does not erase the Green’s wider gains, or the challenge they pose to Labour if Burnham’s goodwill among voters wanes.

For now, Labour can take comfort in holding off Polanski and welcoming a stellar new MP to its ranks on the government benches. But Burnham’s challenge is to turn this reprieve into something more lasting: addressing the frustrations that have driven voters to both the Greens and Reform before those forces threaten Labour from both sides once again.

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While conference season rolled on, there was plenty of tangible progress across government departments.

Here are the seven most exciting breakthroughs and announcements this week that you can use, whether you’re on the doorstep, sparring on social media, or debating in the pub.

1. Letting supported housing tenants keep more pay

Labour has reduced the benefits penalty for taking on extra hours.

More than 325,000 residents in supported housing and temporary accommodation will now keep more of what they earn when they get a job or work longer.

Until now, Housing Benefit was withdrawn faster than Universal Credit, so some residents ended up worse off for earning more. The new rules bring the two into line.

2. Free family seating on flights

Labour will ban airlines from charging parents to sit with their children.

Parents of under-14s can pay up to £104 on a return journey to sit beside their children. Passengers will also be able to fix simple name errors on a booking for free, where charges can reach £40.

Alongside this, UK airport eGates are switching to contactless technology, so passengers can walk through without placing their passport on the reader. Testing shows it’s up to 25% faster, and every eGate is due to be upgraded by early 2027.

3. Live petrol prices on Google Maps

Labour has simplified finding the cheapest fuel.

Drivers can now search for a nearby forecourt in Google Maps and see near real-time petrol and diesel prices, which could save a household with a car around £40 a year.

The prices come from the Fuel Finder scheme, which has required petrol stations to report price changes within 30 minutes since February. It now covers 99% of fuel sold on UK roads.

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4. Requiring courts to record domestic abuse offences

Labour has made judges flag offences against partners and family members.

Courts must now say publicly when an offence involves domestic abuse, creating a single record that police, prisons, and probation can all see. That helps frontline staff spot repeat offenders and manage the risk they pose.

Domestic abuse is already treated as an aggravating factor in offences like assault and stalking, but until now there was no consistent way to capture it once someone was convicted.

5. Real-time tracking to catch waste criminals

Labour has ordered disposal sites to log every incoming load.

Rogue operators have long hidden behind falsified paper records. The new digital trail gives investigators the evidence to spot suspicious patterns and target their inquiries.

More than 12,000 permitted sites across England are covered from 1 October, and waste collectors are due to join from spring 2027.

6. Deal with Germany on Cyber-attacks cooperation

Labour has agreed a joint plan with Berlin to disrupt hostile state activity.

The two countries will share information and coordinate action to spot, deter, and disrupt cyber-attacks, sabotage, and threats to critical infrastructure, particularly from Russia.

It was launched alongside the Prime Minister’s first face-to-face talks with the German Chancellor in Berlin. Britain and Germany are Europe’s two largest economies and its biggest investors in defence.

7. £1.4 billion on flood defences before winter

Labour is shielding homes from extreme weather.

More than 600 projects across England are due to protect tens of thousands of households this winter, in what’s described as the largest flood defence programme in English history.

Alongside this, more than £24 billion is going into local road maintenance over four years, and energy network operators are out clearing branches before storms.

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Polling, conducted by Survation, found that two-thirds (68 percent) of Labour members would welcome a high-profile Green politician defecting to Labour, compared to just 17 percent opposed.

However, when asked about a potential defection from a high-profile Reform politician, almost four-fifths (79 percent) would be against welcoming them to Labour, compared to just 12 percent.

On a potential Conservative defection, Labour members would be more split – with 47 percent opposed, while almost a third (32 percent) would be willing to accept a Tory defector.

The poll was conducted before the Green Party adopted a controversial ‘Zionism is racism’ motion at their party conference earlier this month.

It comes following speculation that Luke Campbell, Reform UK Mayor for Hull and East Yorkshire. is on defection watch to Labour. However, Campbell has denied the allegations and said: “I have not had any conversations with any other party about defection. I am a Reform mayor. I don’t know where these rumours have come from and there is no basis for them.”

Ahead of the 2024 general election, three Conservatives defected to Labour; Dan Poulter, Natalie Elphicke, and Christian Wakeford – who was later elected as a Labour MP.

Survation, a member of the British Polling Council and a Market Research Society Partner, surveyed 1,073 readers of LabourList who also said they were Labour Party members between September 19 and 22.

Data was weighted to the profile of Labour Party Members. Data were weighted by region, sex, age group and 2025 deputy leadership vote. Targets for weighting were drawn from the British Election Study and the result of the 2025 deputy leadership election.

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Fortune moves to Labour after seven years as General Secretary of the Co-operative Party – Labour’s sister party and political partner for more than a century. During his leadership, the Party’s membership and income increased by around 30 percent. It now has 43 Labour and Co-operative MPs in the House of Commons. The Guardian described Fortune as bringing experience of party management, membership-building and collaboration across the Labour movement. His contribution extends beyond organisational growth.

Fortune has consistently argued that co-operatives must move from the margins of economic debate to become central to national economic policy. In 2017, he helped establish the ambition to double the size of the co-operative and mutual economy, which subsequently became a Labour commitment.

READ MORE: Shifting ground – the inheritance facing Labour’s new General Secretary

Under his leadership, the Co-operative Party developed policies supporting employee ownership, community energy, credit unions, co-operative housing, community ownership, fair taxation, local procurement and stronger community rights to acquire valued land and buildings. It helped ensure that co-operative ideas were understood not simply as alternative business models, but as practical instruments for redistributing wealth and power.

Fortune’s appointment creates a political alignment. Prime Minister Andy Burnham is a Labour and Co-operative MP and the first Labour and Co-operative parliamentarian to become Prime Minister. Labour’s General Secretary now comes from leadership of the Co-operative Party. This is welcome, but it must produce more than symbolic recognition. It creates an opportunity to embed co-operative principles, democratic ownership, equality, solidarity, self-help and shared responsibility, across government policy and Labour’s organisation.

For Wales, the implications are important. Co-operatives Wales wants stronger support for community ownership, worker buyouts, co-operative housing, community energy, social care co-operatives, fair local procurement, co-operative education and democratic regeneration. Welsh communities must retain created wealth rather than seeing it extracted by distant shareholders and private-equity interests.

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As a defining feature of Labour’s approach to economic democracy, Labour must respect Welsh devolution and more rigorously engage with Wales’s co-operative organisations, communities, trade unions, local authorities and young co-operators. Children and young people should be recognised as citizens and co-creators now, not merely as future beneficiaries of decisions made by adults.

Local authorities should be more explicit that their approach to Pride in Place must focus on the ‘how’ as well as the ‘what’. This is essential if the programme is to realise the potential of community action, strengthen local democracy and rebuff the populism of Reform Ltd.

Joe Fortune’s record demonstrates he understands the political and economic potential of co-operation. His new position gives him an unprecedented opportunity to carry that understanding into Labour’s strategic and campaigning centre.

Co-operatives Wales congratulates Joe Fortune on his appointment. We also offer a constructive challenge: use this moment to make co-operation a defining feature of Labour’s approach to economic democracy, community wealth building and social justice, not simply a valued historical connection. The movement will welcome the appointment; it will judge its significance by what follows

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This understated crisis is playing out against a demographic reality we can all see coming. More of us will need more care, for longer, than any generation before us. Age UK estimates that 2 million older people in England already have some level of unmet need for social care and without change, spending on adult social care (ASC) in England is projected to rise by around £9 billion in real terms by 2036, driven purely by increased demand.

The costs of inaction are simply too high.

Andy Burnham has now put social care back at the heart of the agenda, and Baroness Casey is expected to deliver her final report by summer 2027. That gives us a window. We should use it well. At the Women’s Budget Group, we think the conversation about adult social care too often opens and closes with how it might be funded. We prefer to start with a different question: what do we need as a nation? 

READ MORE: Time to care

Our contribution to this urgent debate is ‘CarePool’ – an innovative model for a National Care Service. Our aim is to move the debate beyond tax and spend and ask instead what it would take for us, as a country, to come together and share both the risks and the costs of social care across the whole population.

We have set out a 10-year vision for a National Care Service backed by a social insurance model. At the centre of the model is a dedicated national pooled fund, ‘CarePool’ that would create a stable, long-term funding settlement protected from short-term political cycles.

Fortunately, relatively few of us will ever need intensive or residential care. For those who do however, the costs can be life-changing – for them and for their families. This is the very principle on which risk pooling was founded; we shoulder the costs as a nation to help the few when they need it.

Our modelling shows that a National Care Service built on such risk and cost sharing principles could meet around 83 percent of people’s care needs at a relatively affordable rate to tax payers. It would be funded by a levy on income of between 1.5 percent and 2.5 percent, phased in over five years, alongside other revenue streams: inheritance tax receipts, a cap on the profits of private equity care providers, and an offset from existing local authority spending.

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The result would mean everyone would have guaranteed access to some care at the point when they need it, wherever they live, regardless of what they own. The care you receive would depend on your independently assessed needs, and your local authority’s budget would never be the deciding factor.

It would also give care a stable funding settlement reviewed on a periodic basis, lifted above the annual scramble over what is left in the kitty. Care would become a settled part of how the UK budgets, because we recognise it is something we can no longer afford to stop spending on.

The current situation

The current provision of care is increasingly unworkable. 

People who need care are more likely to live in poorer areas, and those areas are the least able to pay for it. Under the Care Act 2014 settlement, local authorities are hamstrung by rising costs, and the people with the greatest need are those least able to meet the bill. Anyone with assets above £23,250 must fund their own long-term care and there are very few products you can buy to help you out if and when you might need residential care.

Into that gap private equity has stepped, extracting profit from some of the most vulnerable people and cash strapped areas in our society. Much of that profit leaves the system entirely and never finds its way back to the Treasury’s coffers.

The NHS feels the strain too. When people cannot access timely, well-planned care, they stay in hospital longer than they need to, and the whole system slows.

Underpinning all of this is unpaid care. Mostly women, mostly family, giving everything they can, often towards the end of a loved one’s life when needs are at their most acute and complex. They do it with extraordinary love, and at great cost to their own health, earnings and pensions.

That is why it is so welcome to see a Prime Minister willing to spend political capital in this space.

Choices worth making

Choices do need to be made. Those choices should be about building something that lasts, regardless of who is in government. It is time for families, and the women who carry most of the load, to stop paying the price for political inaction.

So let us ask better questions. If there is to be a market in social care, what would a functional market look like? How do we protect people at the moment they need it most? How do we ensure that those who provide our social care are recognised, well paid and bound by ethical obligations? Perhaps most importantly, how can we make sure the shoulders of the nation are broad enough, while keeping the burden on younger generations fair and sustainable?

The answer, we believe, is a social contract: a shared expectation of stability and regularity in care, whoever you are and wherever you live, in keeping with the long and proud tradition of the NHS.

This is everybody’s issue. A National Care Service on a fundable, sustainable footing will help all of us, whatever our own circumstances.

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Camden council leader Sagal Abdi-Wali won the Holborn and St Pancras by-election with 45.2 percent of the vote, with the Greens placing second with 32.8 percent.

The Conservatives came a distant third with 7.1 percent, followed by Reform on 5.9 percent and the Liberal Democrats with 3.4 percent, failing to hold their deposit.

Turnout for the by-election was 38.8 percent – down from the 2024 election turnout of 54.1 percent and lower than turnouts in recent by-elections in Makerfield (58.7 percent) and Gorton and Denton (47.5 percent).

Abdi-Wali came to the UK as a child refugee from Somalia, growing up in Camden where she was elected as a councillor in 2022, before going on to lead Camden council in May.

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The by-election, triggered by the resignation of Keir Starmer as an MP six weeks after he stood down as Prime Minister, was expected to be a close race following a Green surge in London’s local elections in May.

However, the party was mired in controversy over a ‘Zionism is racism’ motion passed at its annual conference last week.

Former Green Party leader Caroline Lucas hit out at Polanski on BBC’s Newsnight and said: “I would have hoped he would have been a strong critic of [that] motion, because the motion was flawed from top to bottom.”

When asked whether he should stand down as leader, she said: “Let’s see what happens in the coming days and weeks.”

Prime Minister Andy Burnham said the motion was “terrible judgement” on behalf of the Green Party and called on the party’s leadership to reverse the decision by their conference and not adopt that policy.

The by-election was the first since Andy Burnham became Labour leader and Prime Minister and the seventh since the general election in 2024.

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Less explored, though, is the impact on the Tories of their easy ride from their cheerleader press. 

This occurred to me as I saw headline after headline extolling the Tory conference as a triumph. It’s true that Kemi Badenoch’s speech probably was one of her best and that her personal ratings have risen over the last year. But her personal poll rating is currently -1.1, a deficit of over 10 points compare with Andy Burnham at +9.4. Meanwhile, her party continues to wallow in the doldrums at around 20 points in the polls, usually in third place behind Reform. 

READ MORE: Tory conference reveals their party has learnt nothing from their time in power

Much of the right wing press had been flirting with Reform as it was unclear whether the populists would permanently replace the Tories as the main party of the right. But as Reform’s popularity has slumped, that narrative has been dropped in favour of one of a ‘Keminaisance’. The Telegraph and Mail have largely ended their flirtation with Farage in favour of a return to their traditional Tory support, and as the Times continues its rapid return to being very clearly on the right, they too have chosen to soft soap the Tories 

How much the political positioning of the press matters is deeply contested in our social media age. But that it still matters to politicians and journalists themselves is undeniable. The Today Programme – still the morning listening of choice for SW1 – doggedly read out the headlines of the national press every day and you can be sure this has followed discussion of these stories (presented to them within this right wing framing) at their editorial meetings. 

So the Tories will be pleased with much of the coverage of their conference and their leader. But should they be?

One of the things we think deeply about at LabourList is what value we add to the party we support. We are overt about the fact that we want Labour to succeed – unlike those papers who present themselves as neutral but are anything but, we are upfront about our priors. 

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But what we don’t do is hold back (for example, James’ piece yesterday on the Manchester City scandal) when we think the party or our politicians are getting it wrong. We think Labour politics matters too much to avoid difficult conversations. As I set out when Andy took office: “Unlike the right-wing press, when we are critical of the party, we do so because we want it to succeed – not to fail.” 

The Tory press doesn’t do this and I think it may be damaging to their cause. Because the Tories got an awful lot wrong and not just in the areas they are comfortable admitting because they sit in Kemi’s comfort zone. The damage that was done through austerity, through privatisation and through ideological mismanagement goes a lot deeper, and without exploring properly what didn’t work politically they are doomed to offer the public a repacked parade of failed policies. 

Political parties must find new ways to implement their eternal and lasting values. They have to do the hard work to find out how to persuade voters that those values match their own and that they have the right solutions to the problems the country faces. 

To do that, they need to be challenged by those who share those values as well as opposed by those who do not. And the Tory-supporting press are utterly failing in that duty to challenge. 

As a Labour supporter, it seems odd for me to say this. And perhaps it is my own prejudices about that Tory supporting press that is leading me to dismiss the support they give the Tories as less helpful than it might be. Perhaps this is just a coping mechanism. But given that I have dedicated my life and career to fulfilling this role as best I can for the Labour Party, I like to think it isn’t. 

Kemi will have left Birmingham happy with her headlines. But as long as she lacks a space where those she listens to tell her what she needs to hear, the Tories will not take the time and energy to examine their failures. And, like wolfing down a bar of chocolate (something I also have a great deal of experience of), that might feel good in the moment, but in the long term a sugar rush is not good for your long-term health. For the Tories to actually recover, they need a media diet that contains a lot more honesty. Luckily, this does not look like happening any time soon. 

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The post Soft press or hard truths? appeared first on LabourList.

Some experts say this is the right moment for the new PM to be brave and call an early election, and admittedly, it looks appealing. Burnham will likely never be this popular again, while Reform may never be this weak. But it is the wrong move. A new electoral mandate won’t solve the issue at heart: no one believes in mandates anymore. 

Britain faces an anti-politics problem, and it runs deeper than low voter turnout and incessant grumblings. The public no longer trusts parties or politicians to deliver on what they promise. This means that even if Burnham called and won an early election, the public would expect him to break whatever promises he makes on the campaign trail.

Rising anti-politics has left the public wanting more control over their governance system, rather than less. Recent polling from PF Global shows the public would rather vote for their Prime Minister directly (53%) instead of letting their party decide (36%). It feels counterintuitive, but the shift towards direct democracy is less about wanting a new electoral system and more about winning back agency. 

READ MORE: ‘A new politics needs more than a new voting system’

The British public wants more power over decision-making because they are dissatisfied with decision-makers, and they don’t believe the power they have amounts to much. They are clutching at the only lever they know how to pull: voting. But you can give people as many votes as they want; if voting doesn’t lead to anything, the grievance remains. 

The real problem is delivery, not democracy. 

Ultimately, people want to feel heard and see change. It is the pothole argument that we hear time and time again when speaking to voters across the country. 71% of the public say most political discussions are all talk with no real action, and they feel this most acutely in their neighbourhoods. High streets are dying, homelessness is on the rise, and the government wastes its time playing politics, debating the merits of another election and tying themselves into knots as they make U-turn after U-turn. 

And what greater U-turn is there than forcing the public to turn out early again to vote for someone that may not inspire them? The electorate has too often been asked to put their trust in a new government to alleviate the pressures of daily life, and every few years they are let down by yet another prime minister assembling the Cabinet like Ikea furniture without the instruction manual.

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It is true that there is real political danger in leading without a mandate; historically, those who inherit power without a leadership contest are punished for it by their next election. The unopposed successions of Rishi Sunak and Gordon Brown come to mind here. But both were undone by their failures to deliver rather than their unlikely paths to power. 

Burnham needs to think bigger than dealing a blow to Reform. A snap election fought on Reform’s weakness rather than Labour’s strength would ultimately be a campaign about Reform rather than one that inspires British voters. More importantly, it costs Burnham the one thing delivery requires: time. 

Those calling for a snap election fall into the trap of thinking electoral legitimacy will solve the problem of anti-politics. The British public has not given up on democracy, but it has stopped believing democracy pays off. Burnham has the chance to make people believe in government again. He must act on it.

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The post ‘Fix the visible things, and the mandate will write itself’ appeared first on LabourList.