What happens when a vehicle dubbed “the Temu Range Rover” becomes part of Britain’s biggest political arguments? Under Andy Burnham’s government, the answer could be far more consequential than its bargain price suggests.
The Labour Party conference begins this weekend, giving Mr Burnham his first major gathering as party leader and Prime Minister. His leader’s speech on Tuesday afternoon will offer the clearest indication yet of the kind of government he intends to lead during the years remaining in its term. It will also serve as the latest attempt to reset both the government and the party that runs it.
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Mr Burnham’s central task is to establish a durable impression among British voters — a blend of policies, personalities and emotions — that sets Labour apart from its principal challenger, Nigel Farage’s Reform UK.
Three forces will shape that effort: the economy, Europe and the election.
Boris Johnson went to the country within three months of removing Theresa May, seeking a personal mandate for a hard Brexit and the full five-year parliamentary term needed to put it into practice. He secured his “stonking great majority” in the autumn of 2019. The Conservatives then had four and a half years before the next election, although three prime ministers would occupy Downing Street before voters returned to the polls.
Mr Johnson became Prime Minister on 24 July 2019. Mr Burnham entered the office on 20 July 2026. Boris Johnson called his election in late October 2019. Could Mr Burnham be tempted to follow the same path?
The argument for using the leader’s speech to announce a snap election is straightforward. Labour is enjoying a bounce in the polls, and Mr Burnham has not been in office long enough to alienate large parts of the electorate. The public has yet to settle on a firm view of him, unlike Keir Starmer, who struggled to escape a deeply negative image. The Conservatives are weakened by a new leader concentrating on rebuilding the party, while Reform remains too inexperienced to look like a credible alternative government. It has also been damaged by a serious funding scandal likely to haunt it for at least the next year.
Yet Reform has enormous financial resources, thanks to two crypto-billionaire donors. It possesses more cash than all the other parties combined. If that money is deployed effectively over the next two years, the party could be in a formidable position by late 2028 or spring 2029.
For now, however, it is facing the growing pains of an insurgent movement. Reform has eight MPs; a party needs 326 to govern alone. What kind of parliamentary candidates would its recruitment operation produce if it suddenly had to find 500 or 600 people for an election in, say, mid-November?
Nigel Farage’s Reform UK is the main challenger for Andy Burnham’s Labour Party
Even established parties, backed by professional headquarters and deep organisational structures, enter government on a wave of new MPs that invariably includes a number of miscreants. Their behaviour is often exposed only later, gradually eroding a government’s majority, dignity and public standing.
For a startup or insurgent party, the risks around competence, execution and reputation are substantially greater. That is particularly true under Britain’s first-past-the-post system, which might — just might — hand Reform an outright governing majority. Only two of its current MPs have cabinet experience.
An early election would therefore put Reform at an organisational disadvantage. The more time it has to mature, the stronger it is likely to become. The same principle applies to the Conservative Party, which is still recovering from the trauma of the Brexit years and the emergence of Reform as a serious force on the right. Under Kemi Badenoch, it needs time to settle, rebuild and establish a fresh public identity. The departure of MPs, councillors and supporters for Reform may even make that process easier by reducing the scale and intensity of its internal battles.
That would make a longer run-up to the election attractive to the Conservatives. Labour, meanwhile, has an obvious reason to consider going to the polls sooner. Its immediate threat is not the Conservatives, but Reform, which has become particularly powerful in Labour’s traditional heartlands.
On Friday evening, however, Mr Burnham told regional television stations that he was not planning an early election and indicated that 2029 remained the expected date. Calling voters to the polls prematurely, he said, would amount to “self-serving politics” rather than an attempt to deliver the commitments he had made.
Then there is the polling. Political parties conduct their own surveys and rarely reveal the full picture, but Sky News published a YouGov “mega poll” on Thursday based on the question of what would happen if a general election were held today. The result was brutal for Labour: the party would lose about 171 MPs, although it would remain the largest group with 231 seats.
Reform and the Conservatives would finish broadly level, with 120 and 130 seats respectively. Together, they would hold a few more seats than Labour, but still fall well short of a governing majority.
The Liberal Democrats, projected to retain 71 MPs, would become the decisive bloc and potential kingmakers in coalition negotiations. They would not work with Reform, but even a Lib-Lab agreement would lack enough seats to govern comfortably.
The poll also suggested a powerful revival for the SNP, with 40 seats, while Plaid Cymru would rise from four to 15. After the events of the past two weeks, however, their likely price for support would surely include fresh independence referendums for Scotland and Wales.
The Conservative Party needs time to redefine its public image under the leadership of Kemi Badenoch
Whether the Conservatives would enter an arrangement with Reform — the party seeking to consume and replace them — remains open to question. So does the prospect of the Liberal Democrats helping to usher Nigel Farage into Number 10.
The poll’s other striking feature was Reform’s sharp fall from last year’s Mega Poll. That survey projected the party winning 311 seats, making it the largest force in Parliament and putting it on course to form the next government, presumably with support from the 45 Conservative MPs it predicted would remain.
Measured by vote share, the latest Sky poll placed Labour on 24%, Reform on 22% and the Conservatives on 21%. The Liberal Democrats stood on 12%.
The safest course for Mr Burnham may be to preserve the majority he already has and allow events to unfold over the next two years. There will be no shortage of events, notably the wars in Ukraine and Iran.
That leads to the second E: the economy. The outlook is poor. War-related increases in oil prices are hitting Britain hard, while growth remains close to 1%. Debt stands at roughly 95% of GDP. High debt, weak growth and a deteriorating international outlook have combined to push up the cost of government borrowing.
The yield on Britain’s 10-year bonds has climbed to about 5.36%, compared with 3.64% in Ireland. Debt-servicing costs now consume more than 8% of government spending — close to the amount allocated to education, the third-largest area of public expenditure.
During the week, the IMF urged politicians in several highly indebted countries, including the United States and France, to take decisive action to reduce debt-servicing costs. But the consequences of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the blockade of the Middle East’s two principal oil-export routes are forcing governments to confront competing pressures: they must increase defence spending while helping households absorb the cost-of-living shock caused by the energy crisis. Britain is no exception.
That makes Chancellor of the Exchequer John Healy’s speech to the Labour conference at midday on Monday one of the most closely watched moments of the gathering. He will be expected to explain how the government intends to balance those demands.
Mr Healy resigned as Keir Starmer’s defence secretary during the leadership challenge, reportedly because he could not secure sufficient funding for increased defence spending. He must now find money for his successor, Wes Streeting. Russia’s formal accusation at the start of the week that Britain was collaborating with Ukraine in drone attacks on Moscow has only intensified the pressure for higher defence expenditure.
Keir Starmer couldn’t shake the public’s negative perception of him during his tenure as PM
Meanwhile, the arrival of Halloween products in shops is a reminder that winter is approaching. So too are the prospect of even higher energy bills in a country already among the most expensive places in Europe in which to heat a home. Pressure for the government to intervene on energy costs will grow quickly.
The most immediate response would be tax cuts, but the public finances are already in serious difficulty. Lost revenue could be accompanied by higher borrowing costs, which would feed through into the price of all borrowing — mortgages first among them.
The lasting answer to Britain’s economic problems is a stronger economy: robust growth in every postcode, as the Prime Minister himself likes to put it. That is easier to prescribe than to deliver, but it remains the right objective.
The immediate political question is what the government can do, and do quickly, to protect households this winter while giving Labour a chance of winning enough support at the next election. Calls for fuel subsidies will be intense. The money available to fund them will be extremely limited.
That brings the discussion to the third E: Europe. Ten years after Brexit, former Labour prime minister Tony Blair chose the Thursday before the Labour conference to make a major intervention on Britain’s relationship with the European Union. He wants the UK to announce that it intends to join what he describes as a reformed EU within a decade. In effect, he is asking Mr Burnham — an MP representing a heavily Leave-voting Red Wall constituency — to make that pledge.
Mr Burnham campaigned against Brexit and may personally favour a return to the EU. But he is also a political realist. He knows Europe is not the urgent concern that some Labour activists believe it to be, nor is rejoining the EU an immediate remedy for Britain’s economic weakness.
Pro-European campaigners inside and outside Labour are pressing for the country to seek membership again. Britain’s anaemic economy, together with the failure of many promises made by Brexit supporters — particularly on immigration — has persuaded more people that leaving the EU was a mistake. Yet polling on the proposition of actually rejoining remains far from decisive.
A politician preparing for an election in the near term is unlikely to want to open that debate, even though Europe offers Labour a clear point of distinction from Reform. The issue may be an unwelcome intervention during this conference, but the question of Britain’s relationship with the EU will return to national politics sooner or later. Some Labour figures want that moment to arrive next week.
Mr Blair deliberately uses the language of “reform” in presenting his argument. His proposal is not for Britain to rejoin the EU exactly as it exists today, but to seek membership of a reworked bloc. He envisages an organisation shaped by the Draghi report, with stronger external borders, no national veto over foreign-policy decisions and a broader conception of “A Europe of the Nations”. That phrase was once used by a European Parliament political group founded by French Gaullists; Fianna Fáil belonged to it before moving to the Liberals/Renew group.
In setting out his case, Mr Blair argues that Europe has reached another turning point. In a world dominated by competition among major powers, he says, the continent must learn to generate and project power in a much broader sense than military strength alone.
That power, in his view, depends on economic growth, advanced technology, access to capital, reliable and affordable energy, and the ability to turn innovation into strategic advantage. These capabilities determine who sets technological standards, attracts investment, controls critical supply chains and can respond independently when crises emerge.
The United States and China, Mr Blair argues, have adapted to that new reality by combining continental markets with industrial strategies, substantial capital markets, technological leadership and expanding military capacity. Europe has many of the same foundations, but they remain divided among several countries and institutions, making coordinated action much harder.
He sees the EU as the main mechanism through which Europe can convert those strengths into influence. But he also believes that competing with the world’s great powers will require the EU to change and European cooperation to extend beyond the bloc’s current membership.
Britain, he says, should help lead that effort. The necessary reforms have already been identified, including those in Mario Draghi’s report on European competitiveness; the challenge is to implement them. To take part, Britain would need to demonstrate a clear political commitment to Europe by setting a public goal of rejoining the EU within 10 years, subject to internal reform. Mr Blair wants that objective to become a central pillar of the UK government’s forthcoming 10-year plan.
Tony Blair is making the case that the UK should seek to rejoin a “reformed” EU
It is an expansive and ambitious proposal. It also depends on a defining political project in a country still deeply divided over Brexit, as well as a fundamental transformation in the way the EU and its members operate. Both changes would have to come before the proposed new political relationship could be completed. That is hardly a prospect for immediate action.
In the short term, the “Temu Range Rover” could become the obstacle on which those ambitions founder. The nickname belongs to the Jaecoo 7, a Chinese-made hybrid SUV priced at around £30,000 and sold well below many of its rivals. The name will be unfamiliar to many because it belongs to a newly established brand. Yet in just two years, the Jaecoo 7 has gone from nowhere to become Britain’s third-best-selling car.
It is part of a much wider surge by Chinese carmakers into the British market. Chinese-made vehicles now hold a larger share of UK sales than Japanese cars, while several manufacturers are considering production sites in Britain, particularly for electric vehicles.
Jaecoo is not currently sold in Ireland and may not be available there for some time. Even if it arrives, the price is likely to be substantially higher. In addition to the usual impact of vehicle registration tax, Chinese-made battery cars face tariffs of up to 45% under an EU policy designed to protect European manufacturers from heavily subsidised, low-cost Chinese competitors that have developed enormous economies of scale.
Establishing factories in Britain could offer Chinese companies a way around those tariffs, particularly if the UK secures a new arrangement with the EU giving British-made vehicles access to the single market — along with any European subsidies attached to it. Brussels is alert to that possibility and is attempting to protect its own industrial base through a new “Made in Europe” policy.
Products made within the EU would qualify, as would goods the bloc classifies as European from neighbouring countries. At present, however, that definition does not cover vehicles manufactured in Britain by companies based outside the EU. British observers have, as usual, placed much of the blame on France, but German carmakers are also under severe pressure from Chinese manufacturers taking market share around the world.
A protected European market could become the last refuge for an industry that was expected to help shape Brexit in the Brexiteers’ favour. The bloc has watched Chinese manufacturers, particularly car companies, establish operations in Mexico to supply the US market — a development that helped trigger the tariff conflict under President Donald Trump.
Chinese electric vehicles are now banned in the United States, giving domestic companies such as Ford and GM more time to catch up, or simply to continue selling petrol-powered internal-combustion vehicles — “drill baby drill”.
Tony Blair and Conservative politicians sympathetic to his position are unlikely to welcome a more protectionist EU. But the fear that a second “China Shock” could devastate European industry in the same way the first damaged US manufacturing is genuine, and it is increasingly shaping policy in Brussels.
It has also become a pressing concern for Mr Burnham’s government. Britain has so far maintained a broadly open approach to Chinese car brands, which have flooded the market with new names. One example is MG, once the British sports-car manufacturer, whose name was bought out of receivership about 15 years ago by a Chinese company that is now gaining market share with battery-powered SUVs carrying the MG badge.
The arrival of affordable electric vehicles could help Britain move towards a lower-carbon economy by accelerating the replacement of combustion-engine cars with battery models. With little of its domestic car industry left to defend, Britain could also benefit from Chinese factories through new industrial jobs and stronger supply chains.
That opportunity would be undermined, however, if the EU imposed a major tariff because it refused to recognise British-built cars as “made in Europe” for access to the single market.
For a Prime Minister who wants to revive British industry, meet climate targets, lower prices for consumers and rebuild ties with the EU, the Jaecoo 7 presents an unusually difficult political test.
After meeting Mr Burnham at Number 10 North last week, Taoiseach Micheál Martin warned against underestimating the internal work the EU still needs to do on “Made in Europe”. He said the policy would have to avoid damaging existing trade agreements with the UK, Canada and Japan.
Ireland also has a direct interest in the dispute because of its position in global supply chains. US electronics companies source components from China, and that activity generates substantial corporation-tax revenues for the Irish Exchequer.
With so many national interests involved, “Made in Europe” may sound like a straightforward and attractive idea. In practice, it could develop into a bitter dispute among member states — precisely the kind of “events, dear boy” that arrive at the worst possible moment for Mr Burnham and his attempt to relaunch Britain and Labour’s role in governing it.
For now, the political stage moves to Liverpool and the Labour Party conference.
