Does Burnham have a real mandate without a public vote?

[MyCyanBear]

Been mulling this since Monday. Burnham became Labour leader unopposed (no ballot, the nomination maths meant nobody else could even stand) and then PM without any of us voting for anything.

Then I looked it up and it's the sixth time since 2007. Brown, May, Johnson, Truss, Sunak all came in mid-term, and Sunak didn't get a members' vote either. We elect a Parliament, not a PM, so constitutionally it's all fine.

What made me pause is his defence: he says his mandate is Labour's 2024 manifesto. Which is Starmer's manifesto. While also promising the biggest change in 40 years. Both things can't really be true at once, can they?

Found a decent breakdown of the arithmetic and the precedents here: trendingsheet.com/article/burnham-no-election-mandate-does-it-matter

So does it matter? Or do we only mind when it's a PM we don't like?

I think this Metro article sums it up for me.

I interviewed Andy Burnham - and noticed a crucial difference with Keir Starmer | News Politics | Metro News

These lines in particular.

"In person, Starmer is amiable and polite. Ahead of an interview, he would smile and shake my hand with an air of sober professionalism – not overly friendly, but never haughty or aloof.Then he would switch into a rather robotic mode as soon as the camera was rolling and the questions began, standing very still and rattling through his responses."

"While it felt like Starmer treated every interview like a tightrope to be crossed, Burnham appeared to treat it more simply as an opportunity to put himself across – to sell his policy and his fledgling premiership to a sceptical public."

Same manifesto, same direction, just a different way of doing it I reckon.

And to me the manifesto can be shuffled a bit. Bring some bits forward, push other bits back. Juggle it a bit to get results that are needed, rather than robotically stick to some Gant chart plan.

Just think how much worse this country will be in another 3 years time. Enough is enough.

Well @LagerLady

Has he not just cut tax for pubs ? I would have thought that was very pro Lager.

I actually think that’s a bad thing as seen in recent years. If a leadership change triggered a general election, there would be less infighting because of individual MP’s personal ambitions. It would be much more about the good of the party as a whole (and, hopefully, the good of the country). Leadership changes would happen only under the most serious circumstances, not because Joe Bloggs MP reckons it’s his turn to have a go at being PM.

The last thing this country needs is a general election. Give him the remaining parliamentary term, then we'll have a general election and people can decide how they feel things are going.

People can dislike the Labour party as much as they want, but they won by a landslide and have a mandate to govern for five years. (And hopefully by the next election Farage will be in prison.)

Honestly who cares at this point. He’s been put in place to keep reform out. We’re literally trying to avoid going to hell as a nation

He should stick with it for the three years, no early elections unless he really does want to diverge.

He was voted in in a GE though

Pure speculation.

The majority of the public would be dissatisfied with whoever was in power. It's human nature to criticise and disapprove, something which seems to be amplified when it comes to politics.

Another 100 billion on welfare?

And the majority of the public don't prefer any of the alternatives either. So if there was a GE we'd have a hung parliament with Burnham still PM. Which you may find you liked less than what we have now.

I get that we vote for an MP, and then in turn, whichever party gets the most MPs forms the Government, with a Leader they pick. All fine.

But say I vote for an MP who is running on a published party manifesto of banning mushrooms because they are horrible squeaky things. Enough people countrywide agree with me so that party wins and forms the Government.

But then the leadership changes hands and the new leader decides mushrooms are the best food ever and says they will be served in every dish by law. That isn't the deal I agreed to when I put my X in the box.

So if Burnham is going to (for example/as seems likely) raise income tax, that is changing the terms of what the voters agreed to and voted for. How is that fair?

That wouldn’t last long.

Which is a very good reason for not having a GE right now. A period of stability with a PM lasting more than two years would be a good thing.

Burnham probably knows this. Even if he is enticed by a heady poll bounce he should stick to the GE later on.

Then it would be rinse and repeat unless Reform or the Conservatives drastically increase their popularity.

Yeh it’d be pretty bad. Burnham’s best bet is to not get distracted by polls rn. I don’t think he will, his speeches don’t indicate that it matters atm.

No, I don't see any indication he's going for a GE any time soon. It will be interesting to watch the next few years. Because unless our new three horse race becomes a two horse race again, this may be our last majority government.

The Manifesto on which the Labour government was elected in 2024 was the party’s manifesto, not Starmer’s personal manifesto. If a party which wins a general election decides to replace its leader before the next election the manifesto remains valid because it’s the party’s manifesto not that of any individual.

A Manifesto is not a legally binding contract. It is a set of policies which a party says it will enact in government. If the party changes leader, and the new PM decides to bin any of the policies in the manifesto, they can. Their opponents will call them out on this, & rightly so. The electorate can then make up their own minds about whether the government has stuck to its manifesto & vote accordingly at the next election.

Of course he does.

Time for this GIF...

Boris won two elections. The first was the Conservative Party’s leadership election in July 2019. He was then appointed Prime Minister as the leader of the largest party in the HOC. He then called a General Election in December 2019 which the Conservative Party won with an increased majority. So he remained Prime Minister.

Yes, they always used to push the 2 horse race in my constituency ,,, but the 2 horses have changed ... and I'm wondering if it could be 4, or with the Greens on the rise, even 5 ... very strange.

I think most people here are missing your point. As you said its constitutionally fine. Whether he has a 'mandate for change' is a different matter. He only has the mandate of the last manifesto. He clearly doesn't have a personal mandate from the electorate - and while we dont vote for a PM as in you dont put your X next to PM's name, when people vote for an MP they know they are voting for a PM so they are offering a personal mandate, despite the constitution. However, the system that brought him in is also the system that protects us, the electorate, in a way. In other words, if he makes a mess of it the MPs can get rid of him too. And its only half a term to the next GE so he will be tested by the electorate. Then we will know what we're voting for because he's been in office to show us.