Andy Burnham has squandered the opportunity to break with his predecessor’s militarism, warmongering and disrespect for international law. Despite having offered renewal for the Labour Party, and a fresh start for the country, his government is simply following in Keir Starmer’s footsteps. This is a path that can only possibly lead to a further decline in living standards, an accelerated degradation of our natural environment, and prolonged global instability.
Less than twenty-four hours into his premiership, Burnham announced a series of cabinet appointments that signalled a clear direction of travel. Foremost amongst these was John Healey’s elevation to the position of Chancellor of the Exchequer. As Defence Secretary under Starmer, Healey had been the senior minister most closely associated with the government’s plans to massively increase military spending. By installing Healey in the Treasury, Burnham effectively endorsed the idea that bombs and bullets must take priority over social need.
It now appears, as I suggested in my previous column, almost certain that Healey’s resignation as Defence Secretary, during the death throes of Starmer’s government, was orchestrated so as to set the stage for an even greater acceleration towards the creation of a warfare state. As Starmer’s Chancellor, Rachel Reeves had been a consistent proponent of fiscal austerity. As such, it is hardly surprising that she baulked at the targets set by the Trump administration in the US. These targets expect NATO states to be spending 5% of their GDP on so-called defence by 2035.
However, whatever wrangling that there may have been behind the scenes, Starmer and Healey had been completely singing from the same hymn sheet when it came to advocating for a ‘whole-of-society approach’ to rearmament and military recruitment. Now, with Burnham as Prime Minister, the government is simply implementing policy decisions that had already been set in motion by the Strategic Defence Review of 2025.
Like Starmer, Burnham has erroneously claimed that pouring billions into the arms trade will create jobs and stimulate economic growth. Yet this is a fallacy. Analysis conducted by the Transition Security Project has highlighted that “the funding settlement issued with the Defence Investment Plan will lead to a net loss in jobs in the UK.” This is because of the cuts to other government departments, especially Energy and Transport, that Starmer pushed through shortly before leaving office. As reported in The Guardian, the government’s own figures show that investment in these sectors would actually have a greater jobs multiplier effect than extra military spending.
With Healey now at the helm of the Treasury, Wes Streeting has taken on the role of Defence Secretary. As Starmer’s Health Secretary, Streeting consolidated the government’s relationship with Palantir, the US-spyware company awarded a £330 million contract to provide data infrastructure to NHS England. Palantir, who profit from misery and persecution, is a corporation deliberately named after an artefact possessed by the all-seeing Dark Lord of Sauron from J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings. How very on the nose.
In the real world, Palantir has equipped the Israeli Defence Force with surveillance technology that has directly facilitated the genocide in Gaza and also assisted Trump’s ICE agents in their racist pursuit of migrants living in the US. The company now has access to the health records of millions of people living in England. Incidentally, it is understood that Streeting has received over £50,000 from donors linked to Palantir and other arms companies.
As Defence Secretary, Streeting is now acting as chief enforcer for the military-industrial complex. Streeting spoke last month at the Farnborough International Airshow, an arms fair attended by companies such as Elbit and BAE Systems, who are responsible for supplying F-35 fighter jet components to Israel. This is the weapons system that has rained death and destruction down on civilians living in Gaza. At the event, Streeting reaffirmed the government’s commitment to increase military spending to £298 billion over the next four years. In a subsequent briefing to The Guardian, Streeting alleged that this would take priority over other government departments. This from a former Health Secretary is particularly galling.
Burnham also delivered a video address to the Farnborough International Airshow. Ratifying Streeting’s message, Burnham claimed that the exorbitant amount of money earmarked for military spending would support his ‘reindustrialisation’ programme. Yet, the only people who stand to benefit from further militarisation are the shareholders of weapons manufacturers, many of whom reinvest their profits overseas rather than back into the UK’s domestic economy.
Part of the reason why arms spending is such a poor boost for jobs is that much of the money spent only goes towards capital investment rather than employment. In other words, the cash is simply used on big, expensive pieces of military hardware such as jets, tanks and guns. The Ministry of Defence also has a reputation for wasting huge sums of money on procurement ventures that later turn out to be faulty, obsolete or grossly inefficient. Seemingly oblivious to this, Burnham recently posed for photos next to the MoD’s most wasteful project of them all.
This is, of course, the Trident nuclear weapons programme. On his first visit to the Barrow-in-Furness shipyard, the Prime Minister announced a £8.4 billion contract for the next production phase of new Dreadnought-class nuclear submarines. On top of this, Burnham has stuck firm to Starmer and Healey’s plans to purchase nuclear-capable fighter jets. In total, the Defence Investment Plan has allocated £64 billion for nuclear weapons. Far from keeping people living in the UK safer, these initiatives only serve to increase the likelihood of confrontation between nuclear-armed states.
Underlying this rearmament drive is the government’s ongoing attempts to appease the world’s Imperialist-in-Chief. So far, Burnham seems to have received Trump’s seal of approval. In a post on Truth Social, Trump’s very own social media platform, the President wrote that people in Aberdeen were “dancing in the streets” because Burnham had “stated that he will open up, all the way, the invaluable North Sea Oil!” Far be it from Trump to use hyperbole and fanciful tales to bully world leaders into compliance. For his part, Burnham has implied that government approval for new licenses for oil and gas extraction may soon be forthcoming.
These decisions also need to be understood in relation to Burnham’s tacit collusion in Trump’s illegal war on Iran. In another extension of policy established under Starmer, Burnham is continuing to allow US air strikes to be conducted from RAF Fairford and the UK territory of Diego Garcia. In response, Iran has stated that it now considers UK bases to be legitimate military targets. Moreover, as trade union leaders informed the Prime Minister in their open letter of last week, Trump’s war is only “deepening the cost-of-living crisis.”
In a bid to court progressive voters who have abandoned Labour, Burnham has sought to present his government as being on the side of individuals and families struggling as a result of worsening cost-of-living pressures. Chief amongst these have been soaring energy bills. This has been exacerbated by the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, which has massively interfered with the global oil trade. Burnham’s government has proposed to cut VAT on electricity bills to zero in England, Scotland, and Wales. In the face of further energy and food price rises still to come, these measures will likely prove to be exceptionally paltry. Instead, Burnham needs to try and compel Trump to end his illegal war, firstly by revoking US access to UK bases.
Bombing raids and wars are spreading around the world like wildfire. At the same time, climate breakdown is generating devastating natural disasters and conflagrations on every continent. As it stands, almost three-quarters of England is in drought. Over 1,000 recorded fires have blazed through the country this summer, as a result of dry conditions and back-to-back heatwaves. There are strong indicators that 2026 could break records for heat-related deaths. Despite this, Burnham has essentially remained silent on climate change over the last few months.
If he had any sense, Burnham would abandon the failed Starmer project and look back to the Labour Manifesto of 2019 for inspiration on how to improve living standards. During Jeremy Corbyn’s tenure as Labour Leader, the idea of promoting a ‘Green Industrial Revolution’ was central to the party’s electoral offer. According to the 2019 manifesto, this would have provided “more rewarding, well-paid jobs, lower energy bills and whole new industries to revive parts of our country that have been neglected for too long.” In today’s context, reinvoking the promise of a Green Industrial Revolution would stand as a powerful alternative to the prospect of reindustrialising through warfare.
The transition away from fossil fuels would make the supply of energy in the UK less vulnerable to shocks on the global market. Crucially, investment in green technologies, such as wind turbines and solar power, would also create new employment opportunities. If publicly owned, the profits from green energy could then be reinvested into a cycle of improvements. Above all, this path is the only one that holds out any hope for reducing carbon emissions and averting the current trajectory towards climate apocalypse.
Burnham is recycling the same fallacious arguments peddled by Starmer in order to justify the government’s accelerating war drive. Worse still, through his savvier communication style, Burnham may have become an even better salesman for the arms trade than Starmer. In order to oppose Burnham’s militarism, the Left will require an attractive alternative to these plans to ‘reindustrialise through rearmament’. It should be possible to build such a vision by reinvigorating the concept of a Green Industrial Revolution. This will require robust arguments in favour of investment in renewable technologies, retrofitting, and climate adaptation. This vision needs to offer both a serious economic strategy, capable of improving living standards, and a route out of our current descent into a world on fire.