There’s no doubt that Andy Burnham’s blokish charm helped secure a decisive victory in the Makerfield by-election. And with Starmer gone, that affability may well help pave the way for the self-styled King of the North to become the UK’s next Prime Minister.
But will a Burnham premiership be good for the Jews? Mmm...
Only fair perhaps to look first at the positives. Having lived in Manchester my entire life I can offer one local example of Burnham’s willingness to show understanding towards Jewish people in my hometown.
The year was 2018. Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour Party had become a cesspit of institutionalised antisemitism. At the time, I was a member of the committee organising Manchester’s Yom HaShoah ceremony. In that capacity, I repeatedly emailed Andy Burnham, asking whether, as our local mayor, he would attend this memorial event for the Greater Manchester Jewish community. My requests were met with silence. Then Providence intervened.
One Sunday morning, around the time of the local elections, I was nobbled on the steps of my local kosher bakery by a blousy woman wearing a red rosette. Could Labour count on my vote?
There was only one (unapologetically Mancunian) response.
“Are you having a laugh, love?”
I then proceeded to ask how, given the state of Jew-hatred within the party, Labour had the brass neck to campaign in the heart of our community. Outside a bagel shop, noch!
At that moment, a familiar voice cut in.
“I’m sorry to hear you feel like this,” Andy Burnham interjected, boyish brow creased with concern. It seemed the mayor of Manchester had come to help on the stump and overheard our exchange.
Seizing the opportunity, I asked why he’d ignored my emails about Yom HaShoah. More brow-furrowing followed. He hadn’t seen any. But without missing a beat, Andy (“call me Andy”) gave me his personal email address and promised he would reply. Within weeks, a small group of us were sitting in his office explaining the significance of Yom HaShoah. He admitted he was not entirely clear how it differed from Holocaust Memorial Day – which, in fairness, he has always supported. But he promised to attend the following year’s commemoration and did. From that point a relationship was established.
It’s a good pub story about local politics. But what happens if Burnham – facilitated, ironically, by Josh Simons, the former Jewish MP who surrendered his Makerfield seat – gets the keys to number 10? Will he respond so quickly and seamlessly to Jewish concerns?
Truthfully, there’s every reason to have serious doubts.
Of course, other positive aspects of his record should be acknowledged. Burnham has been a supporter of Labour Friends of Israel and, during his 2015 leadership campaign, promised that, if elected, his first foreign visit would be to Israel.
He has also opposed the noxious BDS movement, and last October stood with Manchester’s Jewish community following the terrorist attack at the Heaton Park synagogue (my family’s shul and the place where I got married). After October 7, he unequivocally condemned Hamas’s barbaric attacks and affirmed Israel’s right to defend itself.
All commendable. But shouldn’t we deserve that moral clarity from all our politicians without needing to praise it?
The concern, however, is if Burnham leans further towards Labour’s harder Left – as his embrace of hardline economic policies already suggests. In doing so, would he also become more accommodating of the intimidatory pro-Palestinian lobby. So giving further permission to the anti-Jewish hostility raging across the country?
Look to how recently, when asked for his views on the baseless allegations of genocide in Gaza, Burnham declined to take a clear position. Arguing he was too far removed from the situation to make such a judgement. Why not state plainly that no court has upheld the genocide claim? That the British Government, a Labour Government, rejects the idea of genocide in Gaza?
Anyway, politicians routinely comment on conflicts far beyond their own doorstep. Why not be unflinching on this issue? No point shedding tears for Heaton Park while offering leverage to those who mobilise groundless accusations of genocide in Gaza to justify attacking Jews in the UK.
These are not new concerns. In late October 2023 Burnham called for a ceasefire in Gaza only weeks after Hamas carried out a genuinely genocidal attack. In doing so he suggested parity between the two sides: Israel, a sovereign state reeling from an unprecedented atrocity, and a terrorist organisation dedicated to the destruction of the Jewish state.
Then, last June, Burnham urged the Government to recognise Palestinian statehood “without further delay or equivocation”, even while hostages continued to languish in Gaza.
So the rap sheet is troubling. Factor in the wider perception of Burnham as a weathervane politician, with an impressive number of U-turns under his belt, and there is justifiable cause for concern for British Jewry.
If Andy Burnham is to bring change to the UK, that must include a refusal to accommodate anti-Israel invective that falls far outside legitimate political criticism. Otherwise, he may well prove bad news for the Jewish people of this country.
And no remembered charm outside a north Manchester bagel shop – on a road now fortified with security and CST – will ever convince otherwise
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