Britain may — very likely — soon have a new government under Andy Burnham. Amid the swirl of senior Labour figures vying for a place at the top table, one name keeps coming up: Ed Miliband.
The energy secretary, who led the Labour party himself between 2010 and 2015 — when he was rejected by voters at the ballot box — is regarded by many MPs, as well as by bookmakers, as the frontrunner to be Burnham’s chancellor.
The two men are longstanding political allies and have been in regular contact in recent weeks, including one-to-one phone calls about policy during the Makerfield by-election campaign, according to three Burnham allies.
In response to reports that he could quit if besieged Prime Minister Keir Starmer does not signal his willingness to stand aside for Burnham, a spokesperson for Miliband told POLITICO he has “no plans to resign.”
But the energy secretary is influential among Labour backbenchers and members. Once regarded as a close ally of Starmer, who has placed significant faith in his net zero agenda, Miliband’s moves over the coming days could seal his leader’s fate.
Political allies
Burnham and Miliband have been close since both men served in Gordon Brown’s Labour Cabinet before the 2010 election.
During Miliband’s five-year spell as leader, Burnham led on health and the NHS, garnering significant public support for Labour’s stance — but not enough to fend off a bruising defeat for Miliband in 2015.
Now, contemplating a new partnership, the pair share a diagnosis of the ills afflicting British society.
Miliband believes ordinary voters are “so angry” because “the country is rigged against them” (as he told a union event in London in February). Burnham used his victory speech on Friday morning, after sweeping to victory as the new MP for Makerfield, to promise “a change in our politics to make it work again for people.”
Miliband is a believer in an interventionist state, prepared to invest to spur growth; Burnham wants greater public control of energy, water, and other “basics of life.”
But a potential source of tension is looming over a matter close to Miliband’s heart — the future of North Sea oil and gas.
Miliband has spearheaded the Labour government’s ban on new exploration licenses for fossil fuels, as well as championing a windfall tax on North Sea profits that was first imposed by the Conservative government and then increased by Labour.
Burnham — who supports net zero as an opportunity for “reindustrialization” — told The New Statesman during the campaign that he kept “something of an open mind” on North Sea oil and gas. `He holds, he said, no “fixed position.”
But he will come under pressure, if he becomes leader, from Labour’s union backers, some of whom are longstanding critics of Miliband’s North Sea policies, which they claim are accelerating job losses for oil and gas workers.
The other by-election
The potential for a North Sea clash came into focus Friday thanks to another by-election, held on the same day that the Makerfield race gobbled up most of the country’s political attention.
Kemi Badenoch’s Conservative Party — now fiercely anti-net zero and pro-oil and gas — won the vote in Aberdeen South, unseating the Scottish National Party. Oil and gas firms are major employers in the constituency, where many jobs linked to drilling have been lost in recent years as reserves depleted and investment dried up.
Badenoch argues Miliband’s policies are making things worse, and put the issue at the heart of the party’s local campaign. Labour finished fourth with just 5.4 percent of the vote, having come second with nearly 25 percent as recently as the 2024 general election.
The victorious Tory candidate, Douglas Lumsden, told voters on his leaflets that a Tory win would “send a very clear message to Ed Miliband down in London.”
The union question
Miliband and Burnham will brush off the criticisms from opposition parties. But warnings from Labour’s own union allies will be harder to ignore.
Sharon Graham, general secretary of Unite, the country’s second-biggest union, and an outspoken critic of Miliband’s North Sea approach called Aberdeen South “a direct result of failed Labour policies on oil and gas.” Louise Gilmour, GMB Scotland’s general secretary, said it was “entirely predictable that a Tory would win this election by promising to protect the North Sea.” Gilmour warned of a “industrial catastrophe unfolding in plain sight.”
Those words won’t go unnoticed in the Burnham camp, who have pledged to put the concerns of ordinary workers front and center. (Team Burnham declined to comment on the Aberdeen South result or their North Sea stance on Friday.)
A Conservative victory in Aberdeen, tightly focused on the future of fossil fuels in a city where oil and gas dominates politics, does not translate into a winning strategy nationally.
Steve Akehurst, director of polling company Persuasion UK, said there was “next to no evidence that this is a vote-moving issue for people nationally. … Aberdeen is very uniquely dependent on fossil fuel industry and it makes the importance of the issue there highly unusual, too.”
But with the unions campaigning hard on the issue, the North Sea already looks like an early test of the Burnham-Miliband relationship. Graham, the Unite boss, welcomed the former Manchester mayor’s victory in Makerfield — but warned that across the country “workers feel abandoned by Labour.”
She called for a plan to “back British industry” — including oil and gas.
“Labour is supposed to be the party of workers, [but] that is yet to be seen in any real way,” she said. “Until that happens, workers will continue to abandon Labour in their droves.”
