What has Andy Burnham said about the voting system?

Westminster has, once again, been engulfed in high theatre. The Prime Minister stood aside on Monday announcing a two-week departure timetable. Hours later, Andy Burnham hopped on the train to take his Commons seat and began his march on No.10 Downing Street.

With no other contenders emerging, it looks as though Andy Burnham could be Prime Minister sooner rather than later. Andy Burnham is a man with a long political history, having been a member of both Blair and Brown governments before becoming Manchester Mayor.

If he does enter No.10, he could also be our most pro-proportional representation Prime Minister ever. Both Tony Blair and Keir Starmer have hinted towards electoral reform in the past, so what makes Andy Burnham different?

The early years, 2010-11

Andy Burnham’s relationship with electoral reform begins all the way back in 2010-11 during the Alternative Vote referendum. At the time, his main complaint was that the referendum was held on the same day as Scottish, Welsh and local elections which meant Labour wouldn’t campaign on one side or the other of the debate. He argued that the “referendum should have been held on its own day”.

Andy Burnham’s 2021 move away from First Past the Post

Following his first victory under the Supplementary Vote in the Manchester Mayoralty, Andy Burnham had a taste of a different voting system and publicly began supporting electoral reform. In 2021, he responded to a tweet from a constituent regarding proportional representation saying he had “come round to it”. A few weeks later reaffirmed his support in a podcast saying that First Past the Post breeds resentment by failing to represent voters.

In written evidence to the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee he defended the SV system. He argued, “As Mayor, collaboration, partnership and consensus-building are critical to my job… I need a strong mandate and an ability to reach out beyond traditional political divides. The current Supplementary Vote supports this.”

In recent interviews, he has stated how his opinions on electoral reform were influenced by his experience as Mayor. While the Supplementary Vote is not a proportional system, it is still one where he acknowledged that he had to make the effort to “knock on every door” and convince Green and Lib Dem voters to back him with their second vote.

Electoral reform and the ‘rewiring agenda’, 2022-24

Common to Andy Burnham’s messaging when he became Manchester Mayor was his dislike of the way things are done in Westminster.

In 2022, this messaging was explicit in his appearance at a Labour for a New Democracy event in. The event was framed around proportional representation being part of a broader agenda of a ‘complete rewiring of Britain’.

In June 2023, he told at a ‘Making Britain Work for Scotland’ rally in Scotland, as reported in the Guardian, that he doesn’t “believe all people in all places will be equally represented in Westminster until every vote matters” and called for Labour to formally adopt PR.

Following the 2024 General Election, and the most disproportional Parliament in our history, he attended a Labour for a New Democracy rally at Labour conference. He made his first call for a review of the First Past the Post system. He said “why not launch a review of the voting system for the House of Commons? And why not consider carefully whether proportional representation has the support of the country”.

Andy Burnham explicitly calls for proportional representation, 2025

In June 2025, Andy Burnham appeared at the Compass conference. He explicitly called for proportional representation as well as a “revolution in technical education, and the biggest programme of social and council housing that the country has ever seen”.

At 2025’s Labour conference when the first rumblings of a leadership bid took flight, he appeared at the Labour for a New Democracy rally once again. He said that “There is nothing more unstoppable than an idea whose time has come, and PR’s time has come”.

A manifesto commitment? Andy Burnham in 2026

At the Alliance Party conference in Belfast, he criticised First Past the Post for concentrating power in the hands of a few and called for as many parties as possible “to fight the next General Election on a shared manifesto commitment to introduce a system of proportional representation at the one after”.

As his campaign began in Makerfield, he told The Guardian that he wanted electoral reform to make politics, “less point-scoring, more problem-solving”. To The Observer, he reaffirmed his commitment, referencing his time as Manchester Mayor and fighting for every vote.

Andy Burnham’s opinion of First Past the Post comes from his first-hand experience of winning elections under it, and experiencing a system where more votes mattered.  With his wider comments about a break from Westminster culture and his commitment to reviewing our outdated and unfair voting system, could a representative parliament finally be in reach? Only time will tell.

We may find out in a few weeks if Andy Burnham is to be installed as our next Prime Minister. Power does strange things to principles, but having one of proportional representation’s biggest advocates enter Number 10 can’t be a bad thing.

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