Our next PM? What would Burnham mean for Britain?

Yesterday the people of Makerfield, Greater Manchester, chose Andy Burnham to represent them in Westminster. But it’s no secret that this by-election was triggered to give Manchester’s Mayor a route into an impending Labour leadership election, and a shot at becoming Prime Minister, that he has good chances of winning. So, what have we learnt from the Makerfield campaign about what a Burnham government might look like?

THE GOOD

Well, whilst Burnham has studiously avoided full-throated commitments to just about anything, we have heard a few promising signals. Firstly, he said his party “have got it wrong on small businesses” and pledged to cut business rates to support highstreet shops, cafés and pubs. Importantly, he says he will plug the revenue gap both by raising rates on speculative landlords leaving high‑street properties continually empty, and by taxing the warehouses of online giants like Amazon.

Mega-corporations use tax exemptions, carve‑outs and profit‑shifting to gain an unfair competitive advantage that suffocates small local businesses, hollows out local economies, rips us all off, and boards up our high streets. Burnham’s proposed Business Rates reform is a great way to redress the balance so we would back these changes, but Burnham should think bigger. To properly fix Business Rates we must simplify the complex add-ons and loopholes, and smooth out the uneven cliff-edges and thresholds that cause small businesses headaches and produce strange disincentives to growth.

Burnham has also talked openly about scrapping council tax, and stamp duty, two of the most regressive, outdated taxes we have. We fully back this move, and as we discussed recently in a deepdive article, we believe a Proportional Property Tax (PPT) paid by property owners instead of tenants, would be the best way to replace this system. Burnham prefers a Land Value Tax (LVT), which would also resolve the outrageous current council tax situation whereby a Blackpool family home often faces a higher tax bill than a billionaire-owned mansion in Mayfair.

We prefer PPT because it delivers similar fairness with less administrative burden and complexity. But these are ultimately fairly technical policy issues. Burnham is on the right track here, showing a bit of political courage (which has been sorely missing in Westminster for decades) and an instinct to protect public services, bring the tax system up to date, and ensure the richest pay their share. But what about the other big ticket reforms we need?

A few weeks ago, Burnham’s main rival for Labour leadership, Wes Streeting, said that if he won a leadership contest he’d equalise Capital Gains Tax with income tax and remove unfair loopholes. That would mean money made on the sale of stocks and shares and other assets — the primary income source for the super‑rich— would finally be taxed at the same rates the rest of us pay on our wages. This is projected to raise £11.3 billion a year for schools, hospitals and infrastructure, and support economic growth. Burnham hasn’t backed these policies outright, but he has signalled he’s open to revisiting Capital Gains Tax. Earlier this year, when asked by Tax Justice UK Policy & Advocacy Manager, Joe Wright, Burnham indicated support for landlords paying National Insurance contributions on rental income, another key step in equalising tax on income from work and income from wealth.

THE BAD

Equalising CGT with income tax is a policy we have advocated for years, and one of our priority tax reforms. This proposal has huge support across the political spectrum, and in recent weeks we’ve seen it gain even more traction— with both the Growth Group and Tribune Group of Labour MPs coming out in favour of CGT reform. But two parts of Streeting’s announcement took the shine off. Firstly, he floated an exemption for “genuine entrepreneurs”. No one knows how that would be defined, and it risks becoming yet another backdoor loophole that shields the wealthiest. We argue for just one CGT relief: an individual investment allowance that encourages ordinary people to invest while ensuring the super‑rich pay properly.

Secondly, Streeting’s branding of CGT equalisation as “a wealth tax that works” while dismissing an actual Wealth Tax— a direct tax on assets above a certain threshold— as “unworkable” risks hollowing out the term and lowering public ambition on taxing wealth. To be clear: we believe the UK should both equalise CGT and introduce a 2% tax on wealth over £10 million. As the Wealth Tax Commission outlines, if your goal is to reduce inequality, there are limits to what can be achieved through reforming existing taxes on wealth, and an annual wealth tax is the best way this can be achieved.

Burnham has been evasive about whether he backs a Wealth Tax proper— not exactly ruling it out, but making it clear it “wouldn’t be a priority”. If he is our next Prime Minister, we will work hard to change that, because we know finally taxing wealth fairly is crucial to addressing this country’s imbalances.

THE UGLY

It is a sign of how popular tax reforms are viewed by politicians as a way to attract votes that Reform also felt the need to launch a major new tax policy this week. But this one is far from positive. They’ve proposed cutting employer National Insurance Contributions from 15% to 13.8% (reversing an increase at the Budget in 2024)— but only for British nationals. Targeting one subset of workers and appealing to anti-migrant sentiment isn’t just cynical; it’s irresponsible and dangerous for people across the UK, especially given recent events in Belfast. Reform has reached again for seriously divisive rhetoric and unserious policy, pitting low‑paid workers against each other while distracting from those actually ripping us off— like their multimillionaire taxdodging Deputy Leader and their offshore billionaire bankroller.

This is a policy that misunderstands how tax can actually help businesses and people. Reform offered no technical detail— Robert Jenrick suggested doing so would be “irresponsible”— so if you choose to look beyond the anti-migrant signalling, it’s hard to know how their plan would even function. If implemented it would also damage key sectors like health and social care and agriculture, which keep our society well-functioning and our loved ones cared for, and rely more on migrant labour due to workforce and skills shortages. It fails to consider the complex reasons people aren’t in work, or to account for the continued high levels of vacancies in these sectors, which employers are struggling to fill.

Reform did get one thing right: the UK really does have a two‑tier tax system. But it’s not the one they’re pushing. The real two tier system in the UK is a pay‑what‑you‑want deal for the super‑rich, like mega Reform donor Christopher Harborne, and a make‑up‑the‑gap deal for everyone else. Reform has no serious plan to fix that. Migrant workers don’t get special tax breaks (in fact they already pay more through things like the NHS surcharge), but mega-corporations, the mega-rich, and the mega-powerful do.

HIGH NOON

It is genuinely refreshing, and a direct reflection of sustained public pressure that all those hoping to become the next Prime Minister have felt compelled to make loud public pronouncements on making the tax system fairer and more equal. We know that anyone interested in improving lives and safeguarding our democracy should be talking about tax reforms to rebalance our totally out of kilter economy back in favour of ordinary people, and not allow the grotesque hoarding of extreme wealth, power and lack of accountability for a tiny elite few.

There’s unimaginable wealth in this country, and if we taxed those holding the vast majority of it fairly we could unlock £billions in investment to create jobs, support growth, build affordable housing, restore the NHS, improve infrastructure, and turn things around. Whether it’s Starmer, Burnham, or Streeting sitting in the big chair, they need to get real and tax extreme wealth or we’ll continue to be stuck in this rut.