Post by Andrew Hart

The King of the North has no clothes Andy Burnham looks set to become the next Labour leader. Many on the left see him as a progressive champion. I think they're wrong. Burnham is not the antidote to Starmer's drift. He's the man who will make that drift permanent. On Gaza, he can't name a genocide. On immigration, he agrees with Farage. On welfare, he's "not squeamish" about cuts. On social media bans, he's backing failed Australian-style authoritarianism — and in doing so, introducing digital ID by the back door. The ban he supports requires age verification. Age verification requires identity proof. And once that infrastructure exists, the digital ID Burnham claims to oppose becomes inevitable. He may not be a digital ID supporter. But he is a digital ID enabler — whether he knows it or not. If Burnham is indistinguishable from Starmer on the issues that matter — what exactly is the point of Labour? I've written the full piece here.