Britain’s incoming Prime Minister Andy Burnham used his first speech as Labour leader to condemn the economic model established in the 1980s by Margaret Thatcher and promise greater public control of essential services, signaling a shift to the left from outgoing Prime Minister Keir Starmer.

Shift in Economic Policy

Burnham, who will formally become prime minister Monday, said that Britain had taken ‘a series of wrong turns in the 1980s,’ when political power was centralized and economic power was transferred to private companies. He declared that four decades of neoliberal economic policy had ‘not been kind’ to the working-class and industrial communities that traditionally supported Labour.

Burnham’s speech offered the clearest indication yet that the former Greater Manchester mayor intends to move the party away from Starmer’s more cautious economic positioning and toward greater state ownership, expanded council and social housing, giving more power to regional government and increased state involvement in essential services.

Reaction to the Speech

Alan Mendoza, executive director of the Henry Jackson Society, said Burnham’s speech offered a clear ideological signal but little detail about how his government would carry it out. Emma Schubart, a research fellow at the Henry Jackson Society, told Fox News Digital that Burnham’s speech demonstrated a fundamental misunderstanding of taxation and economic incentives.

Original reporting: Fox News (HLL/CB) — read the source article.