Does Andy Burnham have a mandate?

The likely ‘coronation’ of Andy Burnham as the next Labour leader and the UK’s prime minister has sparked another round of debate about whether prime ministers taking over mid-term have a ‘mandate’ without having fought and won a general election. This opens up questions about how parties choose their leaders, the legitimacy of prime ministers who enter office this way, and the question of when and why general elections should be called. At its heart, though, the debate often conflates the constitutional mandate and the right to be PM, with the political mandate PMs need to sustain themselves in office.  

Andy Burnham will have a constitutional mandate if he is elected Labour leader

Our constitution is fairly simple when it comes to mid-term change of prime minister. A PM must have the confidence of their MPs – ‘able to command confidence’. And once that support is lost then – regardless of whether it is described as a moving herd or a leadership coup – the outcome is clear: a PM can no longer command confidence. There are good debates to be had about whether our system could be improved, or whether the electorate increasingly believe they are voting for a PM rather than a party. But none of that changes the fact that the current system sees the electorate vote for their MPs and a party, and those MPs and that party choose a leader.  

The forces that strip a prime minister of their ‘mandate’ are the same forces that create one for a new PM. Again, the role played by MPs is crucial. Constitutionally it is the confidence of MPs in the next party leader that enables them to be offered the premiership. This is why the critique of current party leadership contest rules – which allow party members to choose a new leader – has some weight, but MPs ultimately either acquiesce with what their members have done, or they don’t. Choosing a new leader, and a PM, is not forced upon them.

Political mandates have to be maintained

Burnham will have a constitutional mandate because it is perfectly legitimate to change PMs in the way the Labour party is set to do, but it is also perfectly valid to have a political debate about whether that mandate is sufficient and will hold.  

Naturally, people from the party concerned will accept the mandate of their leader changing and those of other parties will cry foul and call for a general election. Similarly, those ousted might remind people of what they had to do to get the job and cast doubt on the legitimacy of their replacement. And the British public have every right to object to a prime minister who they feel they did not vote for. If that pressure is great enough then the ongoing mandate of the new PM will be weakened.  

Sufficiency is also important. A would-be PM might feel that convincing their selectorate – MPs or the party – is a sufficient mandate to lead and significantly change the direction of government policy. But they also may feel that they need the backing of the electorate too. UK political history is littered with examples of PMs who called elections to win a stronger mandate, whether on the Corn Laws, tariff policy, ‘Who governs Britain?’ or ‘Getting Brexit Done’. Many PMs have also wanted a personal political mandate, sometimes to have a larger majority, at other times to tackle dissent in their own party. Some of those prime ministers carried on having failed to win a bigger mandate, others left office. But these past precedents reflect political gravity and the decisions of individual PMs about whether an election would benefit their political project, not constitutional rules.

And there is no guarantee that, regardless of whether an election is called, a prime minister’s mandate will hold. Theresa May, Boris Johnson, Liz Truss and now Keir Starmer can all attest to the dangers of a party that desires change. Mandates, or the sense of a mandate, can wane over time. It is possible to take office with 411 MPs and a manifesto and leave two years later because enough of those MPs have decided that the Mayor of Greater Manchester looked like a better political bet.  

One quick fix is to learn from the other nations

It is perfectly reasonable for anyone, particularly from an opposition party, to argue that a new PM should immediately call a general election to prove their mettle. On the other hand, calls for any mid-term change of PM to automatically trigger a general election risk undermining the fundamental principle that a Parliament can depose a prime minister if they don’t have confidence in them and would move the UK further on the road to presidentialism. It’s somewhat reminiscent of the period in our history when any MP becoming a minister would have to win a by-election before taking up the job – a practice that was ended in 1926.  

As Andy Burnham prepares to become the UK’s seventh prime minister in a decade, the role of MPs in choosing who can command confidence is clear – but there are still plenty of scenarios in which the question of ‘who is most likely to be able to command confidence’ could be disputed. To avoid making the King the person who must settle a disputed mandate, one solution would be to have MPs hold a confirmatory vote when a new PM is appointed, similar to the first minister votes in other UK nations. Ultimately, however, the row about Burnham’s mandate is both a sign of a healthy democracy and a challenge for the next prime minister to demonstrate – first to his party, and then the country – his ongoing legitimacy.