This article is published in full in The New Statesman and is part of Alameda’s After Order project

Beneath the slogans and nicknames, Burnham is promising a radical, regionalist agenda

If you wanted to design a drinking game based on analysis of Andy Burnham’s campaign in the Makerfield by-election, mention of the phrase “King of the North” would be the prompt to get everyone absolutely wasted. An extra sip of beer when KOTN is prefixed by “so-called”, three sips for “self-styled”, and a shot of tequila when it’s delivered in a patronising northern accent by a centrist comedian belatedly discovering what authentocracy means. On the one hand, skewering Burnham’s man-of-the-people regionalist schtick is fair enough. It’s incumbent on commentators to pour scorn on the airs and graces of our putative leaders (Though I was often tempted, through endless sneering over the last few weeks about Burnham’s “vibes-based” and “egocentric” approach, to scream: have any of you ever met… a politician?)

But while healthy scepticism about performative bluff is all well and good, it’s important to note that Burnham’s investment in what might be called the Idea of the North is no mere PR gambit. Indeed, the Makerfield saga – and the Burnhamite rise to power that seems certain to follow from it – is surely the most significant event in the history of British regionalism since the fabled collapse of the Red Wall in the 2019 general election. Can we sift through the professional northernisms and their parodies to uncover a more serious side to Burnham’s regional bluster, one that bears profoundly on questions of devolution, identity, and popular sovereignty?

→ Read the full piece Is Burnhamism about restoring sovereignty?, published by The New Statesman.