Andy Burnham pledges to set UK on ‘new course’ a decade on from Brexit vote

Mr Burnham said: “We’re going to make this a really important week where we setout a new direction for the country.

“We’ve had a decade since Brexit and it’s been a decade of too much drift, too much division, and we need to draw a line on that.”

He said his vision would leave “people able to have hope again that things will improve, that life will get better – and it will”.

Dressed in black jeans, t-shirt and jacket and accompanied by his wife Marie-France van Heel, Mr Burnham said it was a proud moment to attend the Labour conference for the first time as leader.

Mr Burnham, an Everton fan, said: “I love coming to Liverpool on a Saturday, normally to support the Blues, but we’re all supporting the Reds today, aren’t we?

“And honestly, for me, it is a moment – a very proud one – as somebody born in this city, to walk up to my first Labour conference as leader of the Labour Party and Prime Minister.

“My granddad drove a lorry for Tate & Lyle up and down these docks – I wonder what he would make of this right now.”

Meanwhile, Labour’s party chair said she was not complacent about its chances of winning the next election, despite having regained public favour in recent opinion polling.

Bridget Phillipson acknowledged Mr Burnham’s “real sense of connection” with the public was likely behind the latest polling, which showed Labour would be the largest party if a snap election were called, though it would fall short of a majority.

Reform UK and the Tories would find themselves neck-and-neck in their parliamentary numbers, MRP polling carried out by YouGov also suggested, with neither in the position to form a government alone.

The Prime Minister ruled out plunging the country into an early election despite the improved prospects, as he took part in a marathon round of pre-conference broadcast interviews.

Mr Burnham said he wanted to “knock dead” rumours of triggering a contest before 2029.

Speaking to the Press Association on Saturday, Ms Phillipson said Labour recognised it had “a massive fight on our hands with Reform, with the Tories”.

She expressed caution about the latest polling, “because the only poll that will matter is the one that happens on election day in 2029”.

The Labour chair added: “But what we have seen with Andy Burnham is a real sense of connection with the public, taking things to the next level. That hope, that optimism, that sense that Britain’s best days lie ahead of us.

“We’ve got a big fight on our hands come the next election, and I don’t underestimate that challenge for one second, but there’s a real sense of purpose and energy as conference gets under way.”

Ahead of conference, several Labour figures have acknowledged Mr Burnham’s leadership has reinvigorated Labour following Sir Keir Starmer’s time in No 10.

Education Secretary Lucy Powell told the Guardian said the Government under Sir Keir had “lost sight of some of the politics and the purpose”.

Speaking to the BBC on Saturday, Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy said: “I think the reason, frankly, that we had a change of leadership at the start of this year is because we all felt that people need to feel the change in their lives that we promised in 2024 much more quickly.”

Labour chair Ms Phillipson would not be drawn when asked if Sir Keir’s two years of leadership had been a wasted opportunity for the party.

Instead, she told PA: “I’ll be forever grateful to Keir for taking us to one of the best election results in our history, and over the last two years we’ve made huge strides forward, whether it’s on better rights at work, on giving more protections for renters, and on tackling child poverty, and we are on course to lift the biggest number of children out of poverty in any parliament.

“That is extraordinary in terms of the scale and depth of the achievement. But there is more to do, and we know that the public are impatient for change, want to see it, and they want to feel it.

“That’s why Andy Burnham this week will be setting out how we step up that change, how we demonstrate that people can feel better off, can see that sense of change within their communities.

“But Andy Burnham builds on two years of a fantastic Labour Government, but with more to come.”

The Prime Minister faces unrest among senior Labour figures as the party heads into his first conference in power.

Peter Kyle – who served as Sir Keir’s business secretary – warned that Mr Burnham was not doing enough to boost economic growth.

Mr Kyle insisted he was not making a criticism of Mr Burnham, as he told the BBC the Government needed to make more short-term decisions to boost growth, like slowing the rollout of new workers’ rights.

Communities Secretary Angela Rayner meanwhile used a pre-conference interview with the Times to hit out at plans by her Cabinet colleague Shabana Mahmood which would lengthen foreign social care workers’ path to claiming permanent settlement.

The plans are also opposed by other figures across Labour, and could be the source of a row at the party conference.