Andy Burnham promised to put “hope in every heart” as he arrived in Liverpool for his first Labour conference as Prime Minister, with tensions rising among some of the party’s most prominent figures.
Standing outside the conference venue beneath Labour’s “Hope Again” slogan, a determined Mr Burnham addressed reporters in his familiar all-black “working man” attire, posing with his hands resting on his hips.
The Prime Minister said he intended to steer Britain in a fresh direction, arguing that the decade since the Brexit vote had been marked by “too much drift and too much division”. The country, he said, now needed to “draw a line under that”.
Reiterating his promise of “good growth in every postcode”, Mr Burnham said: “We’re going to make this a really important week where we set out a new direction for the country.”
He said his plans were designed to give people “hope again” that their circumstances could improve, adding that life “will get better”.
Mr Burnham described arriving at his first Labour conference as party leader and Prime Minister as a “proud” moment. Reflecting on his family history, he said: “My grandad drove a lorry for Tate & Lyle up and down these docks. I wonder what he would make of this right now.”
The Everton supporter also joked about the city’s football rivalry, saying: “I love coming to Liverpool on a Saturday, normally to support the Blues, but we’re all supporting the Reds today, aren’t we?”
As Labour supporters gathered to welcome him, his wife Marie-France van Heel stood nearby. She recently left her job to support her husband in his new position as “First Lady”.
Burnham kissed his wife as they arrived in Liverpool. She wore a burgundy Next faux leather skirt with coordinating heels and handbag
Mr Burnham welcomed Labour deputy leader Lucy Powell
The couple embraced on the eve of his first conference as Prime Minister and Labour leader
The Prime Minister greeted supporters waiting outside the Liverpool conference venue
Burnham wore his signature all-black “working man” look, including £295 jeans, an £80 T-shirt, a £695 suede Harrington jacket and £110 low-top Adidas Topanga trainers
Addressing the media outside the conference hall, a resolute Mr Burnham said he would take Britain in a new direction after describing the post-Brexit decade as a period of “too much division”
Moving away from the designer style that attracted criticism when Mr Burnham entered Downing Street, including an £850 Victoria Beckham dress, she opted for a smart burgundy faux leather midi skirt from Next priced at £46. The outfit was completed with matching kitten heels, a handbag and a white shirt.
Mr Burnham’s outfit consisted of £295 jeans, an £80 T-shirt, a £695 suede Harrington jacket and £110 low-top Adidas Topanga trainers.
Ms van Heel, known as Frankie, met the Prime Minister while they were both at Cambridge. She recently stepped down from her role as a marketing executive to support her husband and accompany him on official engagements and overseas tours.
Earlier in the week, she joined a lunch hosted by US First Lady Melania Trump while Mr Burnham was making his first official visit to Donald Trump.
She also met Olena Zelenska, the wife of Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky, and Diana Carney, wife of Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, during a gathering at the UN General Assembly in New York.
The couple travelled to Liverpool from their home in Warrington, where Mr Burnham had earlier been photographed out for a run.
He is likely to need all his resilience and energy to fight off growing unrest this week from senior party figures who have challenged him and have sniped publicly at each other.
Former Business Secretary and Streeting supporter Peter Kyle said the PM was not doing enough to boost economic growth, while former Deputy PM Angela Rayner lashed out at the Home Secretary’s plans to lengthen the time before foreign care workers could claim settlement rights.
Speaking to the BBC, Mr Kyle suggested the Government needed to make more short-term decisions to boost growth, like slowing the rollout of new workers’ rights.
‘We might need to look and have honest conversations with unions about how we sequence some of the rights going forward to make sure that we get growth into the economy in the shorter term,’ he said.
Meanwhile, communities secretary Ms Rayner said increasing the timeline for permanent residence from five years to 15 years for foreign social care workers and applying it retrospectively to all those who have come to the UK since 2021 would ‘change the goalposts’.
She has previously called Shabana Mahmood’s migration proposals, which have been welcomed by others on the right of the party, ‘un-British’.
Ms Rayner’s increasingly vocal opposition, which is supported by others within the party and the growing unrest at the Government’s economic plans – or lack of them – ahead of next month’s Budget could cause a headache for the PM, curtailing his honeymoon period.
The backbiting continued when Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy hit back at Mr Kyle, suggesting Mr Burnham was moving faster than Sir Keir Starmer did as Prime Minister.
Ms van Heel recently resigned as a marketing executive to support her husband’s new role and meet her counterparts on official tours
Burnham poses for a selfie with supporters who had gathered outside the conference
Burnham on the new Royal Daffodil Ferry, the first new Mersey Ferry in more than 60 years, during the Labour Party Conference at the ACC Liverpool
She told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme Mr Burnham was ‘impatient for change, and he thinks big about the sort of change that the country needs’.
With the PM also ruling out an early snap election in pre-conference interviews, saying he wanted to ‘knock dead’ rumours of one, party chair Bridget Phillipson also sounded a note of caution about winning the next election despite Labour’s initial poll boost since Sir Keir Starmer was toppled.
Speaking to the Press Association today, she acknowledged the PM’s role in boosting polls as thanks to his ‘real sense of connection’ but said the party recognised it had a ‘massive fight on our hands with Reform, with the Tories’.
As polling showed a snap election would not give any party a majority but Labour the largest share with Reform and the Tories neck and neck, she said:
‘We’ve got a big fight on our hands come the next election and I don’t underestimate that challenge for one second, but there’s a real sense of purpose and energy as conference gets underway.’
Commenting that ‘the only poll that will matter is the one that happens on election day in 2029,’ she added: ‘What we have seen with Andy Burnham is a real sense of connection with the public, taking things to the next level. That hope, that optimism, that sense that Britain’s best days lie ahead of us.’