The timing is brutal. Just days after Andy Burnham won the Makerfield by-election—positioning himself as the primary contender to replace a vulnerable Keir Starmer—a ghost from his political past has walked right back into the spotlight.
An old video clip from 2015 is making the rounds online. In it, Burnham looks directly at a crowd during his first failed Labour leadership bid and drops a promise that sounds completely out of step with today's political climate.
"The first foreign visit I would do as leader of the Labour Party would be to Israel," Burnham says in the clip.
To understand why this ten-second clip is blowing up now, you have to look at the massive shift in British politics over the last decade. What passed for standard, uncontroversial centrist pandering in 2015 has become absolute kryptonite in 2026. With Starmer drafting a potential resignation speech and Burnham preparing to make his big play for the national stage, this archival footage is more than just an embarrassment. It is a direct threat to his leadership ambitions.
The 2015 Strategy Explaining the Clip
Context matters, even if social media algorithms hate it. Back in 2015, the Labour Party was reeling from Ed Miliband's general election defeat. Relationships between the party leadership and the British Jewish community were fraying over Miliband's stance on Palestinian statehood recognition.
Burnham was running as the mainstream, safe-pair-of-hands candidate against a surging left-wing backbencher named Jeremy Corbyn. His pledge to visit Israel first wasn't a deeply held ideological foreign policy doctrine. It was a clumsy, tactical attempt to show the Westminster establishment that he could repair those damaged relationships. During that same campaign, Burnham joined Labour Friends of Israel and publicly called the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement "spiteful".
In the centrist playbook of 2015, those were the standard moves you made to secure backing from the party’s right wing and traditional donors. The problem is that the world changed, but the tape didn't.
Moving Left Ahead of the Curve
The irony of this video resurfacing is that Burnham's actual track record on the Middle East has evolved significantly over the last few years. While Keir Starmer spent late 2023 and early 2024 tying himself in knots to avoid calling for an immediate ceasefire, Burnham took a different path.
In October 2023, Burnham broke ranks with the national Labour leadership. Alongside London Mayor Sadiq Khan and Scottish Labour Leader Anas Sarwar, he signed a statement demanding an immediate ceasefire and condemning the Israeli blockade of Gaza.
He went further in June 2025, co-signing a letter demanding the formal UK recognition of a Palestinian state and condemning the West Bank occupation as unlawful. That position eventually became official UK government policy later that year, meaning Burnham was actually ahead of the Westminster curve.
But in modern political warfare, nuance is a luxury nobody grants you. Left-wing activists and voters who ditched Labour for the Green Party or independent candidates over Gaza are using the 2015 clip to argue that the "King of the North" is just another shape-shifting politician who will say whatever is convenient to win power.
The Massive Problem Facing the Next Labour Leader
This isn't just a headache for Burnham; it highlights the impossible tightrope the next Labour leader has to walk. Starmer’s 2024 landslide was built on a historic but incredibly fragile 33.7% of the popular vote. It wasn't an outpouring of love; it was a rejection of the Tories.
Labour lost significant chunks of its core base—particularly Muslim voters and progressive students—to independents and Greens because of its early stance on the Gaza conflict. To win a general election, the next leader has to bring those voters back into the tent.
Yet, Burnham recently refused to use the word "genocide" to describe the military actions in Gaza during a recent interview. He noted that he "can't judge things of that enormity" from his position as mayor. It is a safe, cautious answer that satisfies international lawyers but infuriates the progressive left.
How Burnham Can Kill the Clip
If Burnham wants to survive the inevitable leadership bloody primary that is coming, he can't ignore this video or pretend his positions haven't shifted. He needs a clean break from his 2015 self.
First, he has to own the shift. He should openly admit that his 2015 comments belong to a completely different geopolitical era. Pointing out that his views changed as the situation on the ground deteriorated isn't weakness; it is a sign of someone actually paying attention.
Second, he must lean hard into his post-2023 record. He needs to remind voters that he risked his standing with the party hierarchy to call for a ceasefire long before Starmer did. His early support for Palestinian statehood is his best shield against allegations of being a traditional establishment careerist.
The next few weeks will decide if Burnham can translate his regional popularity into national power. If he handles the blowback from his past statements with directness instead of media-trained evasions, he can put the issue to bed. If he fumbles it, his opponents will make sure this 2015 clip is just the first of many ghosts to come back and haunt him.
