WIREDGOV

EXPERT COMMENT

An international form of Andy Burnham’s ‘Manchesterism’ could strengthen UK foreign policy by making it inseparable from outcomes in UK regions.

Foreign policy in Britain is often discussed as if it were a distant theatre, detached from the everyday realities of people’s lives. Yet the past decade has shown repeatedly that global shocks land first and hardest in the towns that have the least insulation from volatility. Energy price spikes, supply chain disruptions, geopolitical tensions and investment flows reverberate through UK towns like Leigh and Wigan, Motherwell and Port Talbot, long before they appear in Westminster briefings.

Andy Burnham, newly elected as MP for Makerfield, steps back onto the national stage after nearly a decade as a metro mayor – and as the UK Labour Party’s near-certain choice to replace Keir Starmer as UK prime minister. Burnham describes his politics – shaped by the lived experience of Greater Manchester’s towns – as ‘Manchesterism’: an attempt to deliver ‘good growth in every British postcode’, nurtured ‘from the bottom up’, using ‘public intervention where necessary’ – driven by higher ambition for UK regions and towns. 

This outlook, core to his local election success, also offers a distinctive way of thinking about Britain’s international posture: an approach that I describe as ‘International Manchesterism’. That is, a place rooted internationalism that treats global forces as inseparable from local outcomes. 

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