Burnham as PM? "Wait and see"

by Martin Banks

As he took the keys to the highest office in the land, EBR sought the opinion of some senior former British MEPs on Burnham, the former Mayor of Greater Manchester, in northwest England.

Burnham replaced Sir Keir Starmer who spent just a couple of years in office before he resigned.

Some, including the opposition Conservatives and Nigel Farage, have called for a snap general election, saying this would validate a Burnham premiership.

But Labour has ruled this out and Lord Richard Balfe, a former Liberal MEP in Brussels, also dismissed that idea.

He was a Labour Party member of the European Parliament from 1979 but joined the Conservative Party in 2002, before standing down in 2004.

He said, “I doubt that there will be an election as no one really wants one.”

Lord Balfe I see Andy as being very much in the style of Harold Wilson. He will be a domestic as opposed to a foreign policy PM. He will probably in a very pragmatic way move gradually forward with better relations with the EU.”

The peer added, “As for Keir Starmer he was a remote PM much more at home with his foreign peers than his own party. He reminds me of those distant authority figures from my youth.

"One went to see them and they sat behind an often big desk using language one barely understood and then went home to a different world. He had less experience of ordinary working people than any Labour leader.

“Even his constituency which contained a fair chunk of Hampstead was far removed from ordinary lives. In short he was seen as a cold person who was difficult to relate to.”

He added, “I still wonder how Starmer ever became leader let alone PM. He was cold and distant to the ordinary member.”

Addressing possible future EU/UK relations under the new PM,former Liberal MEP Andrew Duff believes Burnham “needs a couple of dismal years before he’s ready to take the plunge to rejoin the EU. He should buy time by setting up a Royal Commission on UK EU relations.”

Further comment came from ex Irish MEP Pat Cox, a former president of the EU parliament.

He told this site, “For the moment I would suspend judgement until we see what the mysteries of Manchesterism hold for the national and international stage.”