ANDY BURNHAM LAUNCHED into an emotional defence of the unity and solidarity of the United Kingdom at his party’s conference.

Ten weeks into his job as the UK’s prime minister, the former mayor of Manchester spoke passionately about his desire to reverse decades of privatisation in his first speech as leader at Labour’s annual conference.

Within his hour-long address, he grew emotional as he said he believes in the UK his father represented as a trade unionist. 

“A union of nations that gave trade unions and the co-operative movement to the world.”

Our first Labour and Co-operative Prime Minister @andyburnham on the Britain he loves: a country of solidarity, not separation. pic.twitter.com/17sRphb0Os

— Co-operative Party (@CoopParty) September 29, 2026

Burnham’s father Roy, who had advanced Alzheimer’s, died earlier this month.

“I’m going to use this job to build the kind of Britain my dad wanted to see and fight with everything I’ve got to keep it together.”

Burnham used his speech to detail his long-term ambitions to establish free social care, reform the UK’s electoral system and controversially adjust pensions.

“I accept people will not agree with every part of it, but I believe it can turn Britain around,” Burnham told a packed audience in Liverpool, who punctuated his hour-long address with numerous standing ovations.

He then launched into an impassioned defence of his plans to introduce free social care in England for people who need help living with illness or disabilities.

“I accept I may pay a political price. But someone has to go through the pain barrier and rip the plaster off,” he said, acknowledging the difficulties of introducing a new system.

Burnham has re-energised the centre-left party since MPs parachuted him into Downing Street in July ending Keir Starmer’s two-year premiership, dominated by numerous domestic policy missteps and infighting.

But he has been under pressure to lay out how he plans to pay for lofty pledges, including the reindustrialisation of the country, an end to rough sleeping, and building thousands of new council houses.

It comes as the UK economy, like many European countries, is weighed down by insipid growth and soaring borrowing costs, while Britons get squeezed by high energy prices exacerbated by wars in the Middle East and Ukraine.

The prime minister must also find billions of pounds for the UK’s defence to meet Nato commitments.

Re-energising the economy 

Alamy Stock Photo Alamy Stock Photo

During his speech, Burnham told Labour MPs and activists that greater public control over housing, energy and water, coupled with more powers for local leaders, would help spur Britain’s struggling economy.

“I will make a break with the direction of the past 40 years and put Britain on a new path, build a new economy and a new politics,” said Burnham, the UK’s seventh prime minister in a decade.

He said his government would soon introduce a bill to repeal 1979-1990 prime minister Margaret Thatcher’s “ideological ban on public ownership of water companies”.

Burnham vowed to build a “National Care Service” that would be “free at the point of use”, although not until after the next general election, expected in 2029.

Comes at a cost

The Health Foundation think-tank estimates that a National Health Service-style social care system could end up costing almost £19 billion (€22.17 billion) a year.

To pay for the plans, Burnham said he would campaign at the next election on changing how pensions rise, a bold move that right-wing parties immediately labelled as an attack on the elderly.

“By potentially scrapping the triple lock, Andy Burnham will abdicate his responsibility to British pensioners,” said Nigel Farage, leader of Reform UK.

A new YouGov poll on Tuesday showed Labour had slipped back behind rival Reform, which had 25% of voting intentions to Labour’s 24%.

Burnham announced a new government body to invest in Britain’s electricity grid, in an attempt to bring high energy costs down.

He also said he would put forward “different options” for future ties with the European Union around a planned summit later this year, saying Britain’s departure from the bloc following a contentious vote in 2016 had done “more harm than good”.