‘A politics that feels real: Andy Burnham, electoral reform, and the redistribution of power’

As Andy Burnham’s march to Downing Street gathers pace, Westminster is reckoning with something unusual in British politics: a serious argument about how power is distributed in our country.

At the heart of that argument is electoral reform. Speaking to Labour for a New Democracy in 2024, Burnham argued that First Past the Post (FPTP) is ‘straining with the complexity of the modern world’. The existence of ‘a political system that doesn’t let opinions and voices be heard’ – he said – precludes the emergence of bold ideas and ‘creates the conditions in which people can say: we are being shut out. We are being silenced by the elite’.

On this, he is manifestly right.

The case against FPTP is no longer theoretical but grounded in lived experience. It is visible in the mismatch between votes and seats won at the recent General Election; in the collapse of the two-party system; and in the growing sense that political outcomes are increasingly disconnected from meaningful public consent.

READ MORE: ‘A neighbourhood spending lock: an idea Labour can unite behind’

The polls reflect that disquiet. A clear majority of the public now support proportional representation (PR), with YouGov polling consistently indicating majority backing for reform since 2019. Burnham is not so much leading public opinion on this issue as registering it.

But we shouldn’t mistake public acceptance for enthusiasm.

Back in 2011, I worked as an organiser on the ‘Yes to Fairer Votes’ campaign – the ‘pro’ campaign in the now largely forgotten referendum on introducing the Alternative Vote (AV). I remember well that we spent many months ahead in the polls, only to be thoroughly trounced come polling day. Support for reform was broad but shallow.

The campaign sought to counteract the sense that the change on offer had little purchase on the realities of everyday life by tapping into the anti-politics mood that had sprung up in the wake of the financial crisis and the expenses scandal. The country, however, called bulls**t. If that was partly because AV was a particularly tepid proposition (and partly because of Nick Clegg), it was also because people recognised that changing how parliamentary seats are apportioned wouldn’t have fundamentally altered their or their communities’ relationships with power. This was never a chance for real reckoning.

Last month, the We’re Right Here campaign for community power, of which I am the director, asked Opinium to test the extent to which the public believe different proposals for reform would be effective in restoring trust in politics and revitalising our democracy.

The results were revealing.

40% said introducing ‘a more proportional voting system that will encourage collaboration among MPs from different parties’ would be effective (whereas just 14% said this would be ineffective). That result placed PR pretty solidly in the middle of the pack. Perhaps unsurprisingly, it was outperformed by measures aimed more directly at bringing political power to heel – banning MPs from having second jobs (48% effective vs 16% ineffective) and restricting the influence of party donors (49% vs 13%).

What cannot be explained quite so neatly by anti-system feeling is that ‘giving more power to local people and community organisations’ also scored 49% vs 13%, tying for first place. Alongside distrust in the political class, this signals something more affirmative: faith in our neighbours and in local forms of collective decision-making.

Indeed, the results point to a clear belief that power should sit closer to ordinary people. The pattern is clear: as reforms become less concerned with the fabric of people’s everyday lives and more focused on the design of remote political institutions, their perceived effectiveness weakens. ‘Giving more power to local authorities’ (42% vs 16%) was rated more highly than ‘giving more power to mayors’ (27% vs 27%). Even relatively radical proposals for constitutional reform centred on national institutions, such as replacing the House of Lords with a senate of the nations and regions, attracted comparatively modest support (30% vs 19%).

Become a friend of LabourList and join our community. Our friends support our vital non-factional work and get access to exclusive content and events. 

None of this is an argument against electoral reform. It is an argument against treating it as some sort of silver bullet – or imagining that a more faithfully representative and deliberative parliamentary politics fused with Mayoral devolution represents a plan to ‘rewire Britain’ that will set every circuit humming. Responding effectively to democratic alienation – the felt distance between people and decision-making – will require a Burnham government to situate these changes within a bigger story of democratic renewal. One that takes the capacity of our communities seriously.

Intriguingly, Burnham’s track record suggests that he, perhaps more than any other Labour politician, may be capable of rising to this challenge. As a recent analysis noted, Manchesterism rests on a simple but politically significant proposition: ‘people are more likely to trust institutions they can see working in their own lives’. A central plank of his programme for Greater Manchester is Live Well, which has driven a shift towards integrated, neighbourhood-based provision of health, employment, and welfare support – designed with rather than for communities.

Arguably, a drive to make the practice of power more grounded, participatory, and relational lies closer to the core of Burnham’s politics than is often recognised. In an essay collection on Labour’s communitarian tradition published last year by We’re Right Here and UCL Policy Lab, he wrote that ‘People don’t want more promises from on high. They want to be part of something. They want to be seen, heard, and trusted.’ The task before Labour, he argued, is to build ‘a politics that feels real. A politics that says: you matter. Your voice matters. Your community matters.’

This politics will only be made possible through the development of a comprehensive plan to redistribute power by means both constitutional and civic, generational and everyday.

In practice, this would mean building on Pride in Place and the various other initiatives launched by the Starmer government with a view to unlocking the agency of our communities – including neighbourhood governance arrangements, community power pilots, and Local Covenant Partnerships – while consolidating them within a unified framework for neighbourhood-level decision-making. It would mean radically expanding the community ownership of economic assets, as championed by Burnham’s close ally Miatta Fahnbulleh. And it would mean organising public services around communities instead of institutional boundaries, and reforming them to prioritise ‘the user interest over the provider interest’, as called for by Communities Secretary (and Starmer ally) Steve Reed in a strikingly bold speech last week.

Electoral reform matters because power matters. A more representative parliament may be a necessary condition of democratic renewal, but it is unlikely to be a sufficient one. If Burnham’s politics is really about making people feel seen, heard, and trusted, then it must bring power closer to where people actually live their lives. Fulfilling the promise of that politics will require decisive action to change not only how power is won, but how power is shared.

Subscribe here to our daily newsletter roundup of Labour news, analysis and comment– and follow us on TikTok, Bluesky, WhatsApp, X and Facebook. You can also write to our editor to share your thoughts on our stories and share your own. The best letters are published every Sunday.

• • SHARE: If you have anything to share that we should be looking into or publishing about this story – or any other topic involving Labour– contact us (strictly anonymously if you wish) at [email protected].
  • SUBSCRIBE: Sign up to LabourList’s morning email here for the best briefing on everything Labour, every weekday morning.
  • BECOME A FRIEND: If you enjoyed this, why not consider becoming a Friend of LabourList? Help sustain our journalism, and of course Friends do get benefits…
  • PARTNER: If you or your organisation might be interested in partnering with us on sponsored events or projects, email [email protected].
  • ADVERTISE: If your organisation would like to advertise or run sponsored pieces on LabourList‘s daily newsletter or website, contact our exclusive ad partners Total Politics at [email protected].