Burnham's big ideas ignite the Labour foot soldiers

He didn't say, "Let's rejoin the EU". He didn't even say, "Let's join the single market". But Andy Burnham did tell his first Labour Party Conference as UK Prime Minster that Brexit has not given Britain back control, and has done more harm than good to the UK economy.

It was a speech that distilled the essence of Labour - bottled, packaged and marketed for the 21st Century. But Mr Burnham's promises on social care, housing, employment, pensions and utilities all need money. Tax money. That can only come from a growing economy. And one of the engines of growth, as Mr Burnham sees it, is the European Union - still Britain's biggest trade partner and market, but, after Brexit, not delivering what it could for British business.

And if it is not delivering for business and employment, it is not delivering the taxes they yield to the government.

Hence, the pressing need for a new relationship with the EU. Promising to put an end to a "decade of divisiveness and drift", he said, "We will not give Britain the clear path we need into the rest of the century until we decide on a long-term relationship with what is still our largest market".

This is what is at stake at the several-times delayed EU-UK summit that both sides say they want to happen before the end of the year. Mr Burnham and Taoiseach Micheal Martin spoke about it at their meeting in Manchester last week. Mr Martin would like it to happen during the Irish Presidency.

When that talking is done, Mr Burnham has promised to "lay out to you, lay out to the country, what I believe are the different options for Britain's long-term relationship with our European partners. And there are different options. And I will see if we can find consensus around one which will give us clarity about our position, and the future of the continent we live in".

So, no clarity and lots of risk. If Mr Burnham can't live with what the EU offers, and vice versa, then he is damaged.

There are risks at home, too. Trying to save money from the pension arrangement - known in the UK as the triple lock, a three-point test for raising the state pension every year that results in it going up by the highest measure - is very high risk. The British Prime Minister's political opponents have zeroed in on this issue for months, knowing that anything that cuts or appears to cut pensions is politically toxic.

Mr Burnham is trying to spin that the savings from the changes will go into providing care for the elderly - the National Care Service, he dubbed his plan, to run alongside the NHS. But it is a big stick for the opposition to beat him with.

But perhaps he has worked out the numbers - the electoral ones, as well as the fiscal ones - and thinks he can afford to offend a chunk of pensioners. After all, many of them vote for the Conservatives and Reform UK. And pensioners tended to vote strongly for Brexit.

Instead, Mr Burnham's speech aimed to court the youth vote, which has become disillusioned with politics. He wants to invest in them - in apprenticeships and technical education, in industrialisation to employ these new technically trained Britons. And he intends undertaking the biggest construction programme for social housing since the immediate post war years, helping to solve their biggest gripe: like their Irish counterparts, they can't get houses.

Maybe he can win the youth vote, maybe he won't entirely alienate the elderly vote, maybe it will be enough to win the next election. Whatever the case, it is the clearest indication yet that this prime minster has a bigger appetite for risk than most. While his Makerfield bye-election gambit was risky for him personally, this is risky for his party's existence. But so is doing nothing.

Yet he seems to have the party eating from his hand. The people RTÉ News spoke to immediately after the speech were delighted, fizzing with energy and enthusiasm, fired up by a leader clearly communicating a vision for the country and clearly setting out what Labour stands for as it faces into a huge political fight with Reform and the Conservatives – the latter trying to conserve the legacy of the Thatcherite revolution in the face of a Prime Minster who asserts the country has been on the wrong path for the past 40 years; the former trying to offer a new type of right-libertarian revolution that springs from Brexit – the very thing Mr Burnham says has not worked, weakening the economy and undermining immigration controls.

It is a war on two fronts, but this speech put fire in the bellies of the Labour foot soldiers who will have to do the house-to-house fighting in this battle for Britain.

Mr Burnham gave them lots of folksy, emotionally tinged tales to remind them of what their party is supposed to stand for – working class ambition and a ladder up.

He also offered them a compelling tale for the doorsteps and elevator rides: Save on the welfare bill by getting more people into work. Save on the housing benefits bill by building council houses and renting them to people - a secure house to enable every other sort of human development. Optimism, and the slogan of this conference: "Hope Again".

He even offered the hope of changing the electoral system by setting up a commission to offer an alternative to first past the post after the next election, one that will not "open the door of number 10 to a divisive government on less than 30% of the vote".

That was the closest Mr Burnham came to naming Reform in the speech. And while waiting for this new voting system to arrive - presumably a version of proportional representation - he promised to try and get collaborative and consensus-driven politics into Westminster, by seeking as much cross-party support as possible for his reform plans. The opposition may sense a trap in that offer, especially Reform, which exists in opposition to what it considers to be a cosy consensus in Westminster.

It is all part of offering political change to a country that was so desperate for change that it voted for Brexit, and was disappointed when even that didn't deliver change.

'Something worth saving'

Mr Burnham also defended the Union - the United Kingdom as a country and a concept - against those seeking constitutional change. And his speech became deeply personal when he saw the line on the autocue that read, "On the day my dad died".

There was a very long pause as his eyes filled with tears. His father's death happened just over two weeks ago, the same day that the leaders of Sinn Féin, Plaid Cymru and the Scottish National Party (SNP) met in Cardiff to sign a pledge to work together to put an end to the Union through independence or re-unification referendums.

At that meeting, John Swinney, the leader of the SNP and First Minister of Scotland said Mr Burnham would be the last prime minster of the United Kingdom. His response was an emotional mix of the personal and the political.

"On the day my dad died, the Scottish First Minister said I would be the last prime minister of the United Kingdom.

"I quote that not to seek sympathy. Nor to criticise John Swinney, I don't think he knew the news at the time. And anyway, my dad Roy would have been the first to defend his right to say it.

"I relay it because I want you to know how it made me feel: Utterly determined to prove him wrong.

"Whatever its flaws, this country gave my dad a good life. And it has given his sons opportunities he didn't get for himself. He recognised that and was grateful for it. And so proud of what Nick, John and I did with them.

"If only... if only he had been able to appreciate that moment of the family in Downing Street. The son of a man who failed his Eleven-plus [exam] becoming Prime Minister. The fact it could even happen in this country would not have been lost on him. He could have gone to university himself, but times were different then, so it wasn’t an option.

"But he voted every time, religiously, for the Labour governments which changed education so his sons could do that.

"The United Kingdom my dad represented is the one I believe in.

"A union of nations that gave trade unions and the cooperative movement to the world. The National Health Service. A country that stood up to fascism. A country of solidarity, not separation. That's the Britain my dad represented.

"Britain is not perfect. It can be better and we will make it so. But it still stands for something worth saving, worth fighting for. And we will always be stronger facing a changing world together, rather than separating.

"So, I am 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.

"Not the last Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. Rather, the first to rewire it to make it work for all people and places. Driving power out of Whitehall and into every postcode of Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland and England, and closing divides between people and places. "

Read more:
Brexit 'did more harm than good' - Burnham signals closer relationship with EU

So yes, Mr Burnham is a Unionist, leading a Unionist party. He'll battle the nationalists, the Conservatives, Reform UK, and any other political parties. He has already won the internal battle of the Labour Party - and he did it by taking risks.

He took more risks yesterday. But right now, the party loves him - for the risk, for the emotion, for what he said, and for how he said it.

Now he must convince the country.