With only the weekend left to decide, it has been reported that Shabana Mahmood is “pretty much locked in” to become Andy Burnham’s new chancellor. Her big advantage is that she’s not Ed Miliband. However, there are multiple disadvantages to promoting Mahmood to the Treasury.

The first is that it would mean moving her out of the Home Office, where she’s established a reputation for robustness on immigration. That’s not entirely deserved, but her departure would allow an outright immigration liberal to move in and gut her reforms, especially on Indefinite Leave to Remain. Reform UK, sinking in the polls, would be grateful for that lifeline.

A second problem with Mahmood is that she’s a triple threat: a competent minister, a skilled political operator and one of the Labour Party’s few genuine stars. Given the long history of the Treasury as a rival power base to Downing Street, to combine all three qualities in one chancellor is asking for a conflict to come up for Andy Burnham. Just ask Tony Blair about Gordon Brown or Boris Johnson about Rishi Sunak.

It is possible Burnham feels reassured that Mahmood doesn’t appear to have much of an economic policy agenda of her own and can thus be used as his viceroy at the Treasury. But that’s the third big problem with appointing her as chancellor. Mahmood has no record of sticking to hardline fiscal rules like Rachel Reeves, which would leave the new PM exposed to doubts about his own grip on economic reality.

So, given these objections, why doesn’t Burnham choose someone like Pat McFadden instead? The current Work and Pensions Secretary evidently understands the need for welfare savings and spending discipline in general, so could more feasibly reassure the markets. As a minister, he’s seen as a safe pair of hands, or, to put it less kindly, a dull technocrat. Best of all, appointing McFadden would allow Mahmood to stay at the Home Office to finish her work on immigration. Burnham could thus begin with a stabilising figure in both these crucial departments.

Unfortunately, the incoming Labour leader finds himself deep in hock to the soft Left of his party, and not making Miliband chancellor will come at a hefty price. It was reported last night that Burnham is already facing severe backlash for choosing Mahmood as chancellor over a more Left-wing candidate. Others on the Left of the party, such as Angela Rayner, have also smoothed his path and will require their rewards.

And so, for all his Makerfield man-of-the-people act, Burnham is seeking to appease progressive opinion among his political colleagues. That will require at least one — and possibly all — of the following: watering down immigration reforms, which means moving Mahmood from the Home Office; packing his Cabinet with female appointees, which means giving Mahmood an alternative senior job; and compensating Miliband by offering him the Foreign Office, which is the other Great Office of State that Mahmood could have been moved to.

So if Burnham does move Shabana Mahmood into the Treasury, it will be because he’s put party before country. It’s an inauspicious start to his time as prime minister.

---

Peter Franklin is Associate Editor of UnHerd. He was previously a policy advisor and speechwriter on environmental and social issues.

peterfranklin_

---