What Burnham as PM could mean for your taxes, welfare and immigration

But with over 90 MPs calling on Starmer to go following a historically bad set of local election results, pressure on the Prime Minister is growing.

Burnham’s record in government, his mayoralty in Manchester, and a string of high-profile disagreements with Downing Street give a clearer picture than most of what his premiership might look like.

Welfare and disability benefits

Burnham has been among the most vocal Labour figures to oppose the Government’s welfare cuts.

Speaking on BBC Radio Manchester in March 2025, following Rachel Reeves’s Spring Statement, he said the package – which targeted personal independence payments, carer’s allowance and universal credit – felt like “the wrong choice.”

He added that he struggled “to believe there will be no detrimental effect that further makes the lives of disabled people harder”.

However, Burnham stopped short of calling for a full reversal at the time.

The Mayor told the BBC that “the system does need fundamental reform and we have a large amount of agreement with the Government on that” – but he argued the pace and scale of the cuts went too far.

Burnham’s position implies that, while he might seek some reform of the welfare system, he is unlikely to continue the scale of cuts the current Government is pursuing.

The NHS

Health policy is where Burnham – who was health secretary between 2009 and 2010 under Gordon Brown – has the clearest record.

His central argument, developed over more than a decade, is that the NHS and social care must be fully integrated into a single publicly run system, free at the point of use – what he calls a National Care Service.

Burnham has said that forcing hospitals and care providers to compete for contracts is “an alien ideology” that fragments care.

As Mayor of Greater Manchester, he has piloted this model through the city-region’s integrated health and social care partnership, overseeing a £6bn budget.

In March 2026, he secured a deal to appoint the UK’s first health commissioner, jointly accountable to him and the health secretary.

As health secretary in 2009, Burnham introduced the “preferred provider” policy, making the NHS the first choice for new contracts over private firms.

A Burnham premiership would almost certainly look to extend that principle nationally – a sharp departure from Wes Streeting’s willingness to use private sector capacity to cut waiting times.

Taxes and the economy

Burnham’s most consistent economic argument is that Britain taxes work too heavily and wealth too lightly.

Speaking to Sky News in June 2025, he said: “We’ve overtaxed people’s work and we’ve undertaxed people’s assets and wealth and that balance should be put more right.”

His proposed remedies are specific: a revaluation of council tax bands – unchanged since 1991 – land value taxation reform, and replacing inheritance tax with a “care levy” to fund a National Care Service, with the wealthiest contributing the most.

But it is his comments on borrowing that have caused the most turbulence.

In an interview with The New Statesman in September 2025, Burnham said politicians needed to “get beyond this thing of being in hock to the bond markets”.

Starmer responded the following day, likening his proposals to the Truss mini-Budget of 2022 which he said had been “a disaster for working people”,

The Prime Minister added: “The same would be true if you abandoned fiscal rules in favour of spending.”

Burnham pushed back at an event at Labour’s Liverpool conference, saying he would “stick to fiscal rules.”

He went further in February 2026, telling the Resolution Foundation think-tank that he had “never said Britain should ignore the bond market”, and insisted his words had been “twisted”.

The episode nonetheless points to a vulnerability. His calls for renationalisation, higher wealth taxes and greater public control of essential services could spook financial markets.

Immigration

Burnham has been critical of the Government’s increasingly hardline stance on immigration.

Speaking on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme in November 2025, he said he agreed with Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood that “root-and-branch reform of the system” was needed, but added: “I do have a concern about leaving people without the ability to settle.”

He was particularly critical of Mahmood’s plan to quadruple the length of time asylum seekers must wait to gain permanent residency – from five to 20 years – with status reviews every two-and-a-half years.

Burnham said the policy would leave people “in a sense of limbo and unable to integrate”, and argued it would be “better to stick with the decision of long-term leave to remain.”

His overall position suggests he would pursue lower net migration figures less aggressively than the current administration, placing greater weight on the rights of those already in the country to settle and contribute.

Foreign affairs

Burnham’s foreign policy positions are more developed than his rivals’, shaped partly by his public break with Starmer over Gaza.

In October 2023, the mayor became one of the first senior Labour figures to call for a ceasefire, breaking with the party leadership alongside London Mayor Sadiq Khan and Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar.

He warned Starmer not to brand MPs who disagreed on the issue “as disloyal or as if they don’t care about innocent lives.”

In June 2025, Burnham joined three other party figures in urging the Government to recognise Palestinian statehood “without further delay or equivocation.” The Government did so in September.

On Europe, he has gone further than any of his rivals. Speaking at a fringe event at Labour’s Liverpool conference in September 2025, he said he hoped to see the UK rejoin the EU in his lifetime – a position well beyond the Government’s current reset – and has repeatedly described Brexit as a financial “disaster.”

As prime minister, that would likely mean a more assertive stance on Israel and Gaza than Starmer has taken, and greater ambition on the EU relationship than the current reset allows for.